Invocation of My Demon Brother

I'm sorry. Some things don't stand the test of time. I lived through all this stuff when everyone was smoking or taking acid and thought these kinds of films were so cool. Now they seem laughable. Apparently, this helped to put the Rolling Stones' Satan stuff in some sort of visual realm. Instead, it looks like something a bunch of high school kids did in their art class. Throbbing and endless.

I watched this last night for the first time, on the "Films of Kenneth Anger Vol. 2" DVD, and to me this was probably the most intense of the set. Between the droning, obnoxious score (by Mick Jagger, of all things), and the changing film speeds, this film really did invoke feelings of, if not really a nightmare, then definitely an altered state, and not a real fun one at that.

But the capper for me was the use of Bobby Beausoleil (sp?), who was one of Manson's killers. This footage was apparently shot only a couple of years before Bobby (sorry, not trying to imply too much familiarity, but I'm really sick of typing his last name, it hurts my brain) murdered Gary Hinman. The footage of Bobby, combined with the knowledge of what he's gonna do in a couple of years, just creeped the f**k right out of me.

So, I did like this, and I'd recommend it to folks interested in Anger, or in weird sixties head trips & the dark side of psychedelia, but I'm really glad I didn't watch it under the influence. It probably would have wound up occupying a "special" place in my brain, and I don't mean a good happy place.

There is a difference between "trippy" and "psychedelic." "Trippy" is what people who mostly have never had psychedelic experiences ascribe to weirdness in art, and "psychedelic" is art - be it music or film or whatever - that simulates or outright induces a state of altered consciousness as a proxy or alternative to psychedelic drugs, dream states, meditation, etc.

People really like to pat themselves on the back a lot in their neurotic quest to dismiss all 60s or occult techniques, imagery, sounds, tropes, whatever. I can understand this to some degree. A lot of the 60s was just goofy. The case I'd make for this and Lucifer Rising is that this is about as good as this kind of thing can be done.

It is not for everyone.

Here Anger turns everything up to 11 in a relentless torrent of Thelemic, Satanic, and Nazi imagery, nudity, drug use, and blasphemy.

This is a psychedelic film or, I guess, if you're just too hip or grounded or intellectual or contemporary or whatever for Kenneth Anger, an attempt at one. The purpose here is to get on top of you, by which I mean, tap a nerve. This is a torrent of input - visual and aural - pumped mercilessly into the viewer's senses.

The disturbing soundtrack, varying film speeds, interlaced light effects and occult imagery (flashing unicursal hexagrams, etc.) are clearly meant to unsettle and induce a state of altered consciousness of some sort, but in my case it just kind of made me uncomfortable. In a good way. This is not to say a pleasant way. An effective way. (Is this film itself, a magickal working of sorts?)

I can't help it. I like this, even if I don't *enjoy* it exactly. This is not an exploitation film. This is the real deal: the Age of Horus spontaneously exploding through (and nearly obliterating) the Age of Aquarius.

Evil hippies, man.

I found this nightmarish, frantic, and disconcerting. I suppose if you can simply dismiss the whole of the 1960s and the whole of the occult of the time, you can dismiss this, too. I'm just not that cool I guess.

Worth a watch as art and as film-making with a different purpose than usual (while this is entertaining, I don't think this was conceived of as primarily "entertainment").

There's no plot here. If you need one, don't bother. Watch with an open mind.

Then go to Church after.

Ever since his rampantly homo-erotic debut 'Fireworks' (1947) whilst still a teenager, Kenneth Anger has carved out for himself a singular reputation as a movie-maker whose films willfully transgress society's limits in search of mystical self-awareness. To this end, 'Scorpio Rising' (1964) is a blasphemous homo-sexual biker fantasy writ large while his magnum opus 'Lucifer Rising' (1972) is a gorgeous esoteric rite dedicated to Lucifer himself as well as English occultist (once dubbed "the wickedest man in the world") Aleister Crowley. 'Invocation of my Demon Brother' (1969) sits between these two career defining films and, to be honest, I only find it interesting in that respect. More specifically, the film itself is a 10 minute montage of a Black Albino, some naked men, people jamming and smoking in proper 60s fashion, shots of Anger himself performing a ritual to invoke a new Aeon (replete with Swastika), and a whole host of striking effects done with lights and different lenses, all sound-tracked by a deliberately monotonous moog synthesizer soundtrack courtesy of Mick Jagger who also pops up in a couple of shots. However, two other cameos are of note: the first is long-time friend, and founder of the Church of Satan, Anton LaVey while the other is his former protégée (and later Manson Family member) Bobby Beausoleil who is still in prison for murder. Indeed, the fragmentary nature of 'Invocation…' comes from the fact that the footage was originally part of the original version of 'Lucifer Rising' but an argument Anger had with Beausoleil over money led to Beausoleil running off with the print whereby he inadvertently met Charles Manson who buried the film in the desert. The result? 'Invocation…' was stitched together and released and as it stands lacks the sumptuous, haunting visuals of films like 'Eaux d'artifice' (1953) or 'Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome' (1954), the feverish homo-eroticism of 'Fireworks' or 'Scorpio Rising', or the esoteric narrative grandeur of 'Lucifer Rising'. And yet…it's a film I find myself returning to. Perhaps this is somehow due to the fact that, although always ambiguous about his relationship to Satanism – preferring instead to promote solar worship and Thelema (the religion founded by his occult idol Crowley) – Anger has declared 'Invocation…' to be his most "satanic" film. Maybe it's this, or maybe it's just that I am very forgiving of the film as I value it as a sub-cultural document inextricably entwined with the dark-side of the sixties as well as an interesting interim feature between two career peaks. In conclusion, I can only recommend it to people with a similar niche interest as a casual viewer will probably find nothing of interest here.

You don't have to be a scholar of the avant-garde/experimental scene to realize that Kenneth Anger IS trying to invoke something with his short film. A hypnotic nightmare, a devilish delirium, a dervish dance, a chaotic panorama of sights and sounds plucked straight from the late sixties hippie melting pot, pulsating with frenzied energy, convulsing and threatening to spiral out of control at every turn. The imagery Anger employs is an eclectic mix of Hell's Angels denim, occult liturgy, caleidscopic nightmares, religious iconography, hell, he even throws a Nazi flag in for good measure, and everything coalesces in a helter skelter of diabolic psychedelia. Yet what must have been a completely alien experience back in 1969 seems familiar territory by now - mostly because a lot of what Anger was doing back then, both in terms of imagery and execution, has been appropriated by the music video industry the past twenty years. Speaking of music, Mick Jagger's hypnotic score was as ahead of its time as the film itself. A must-see for the adventurous viewer.