The Wild Blue Yonder

I just saw this film at the L.A. Film Fest and I was intrigued by the idea. Brad Dourif was the perfect choice for the alien role and even though I do not believe this film will be embraced by mainstream American film goers, I think this is one of the most beautifully photographed films in some time, which of course is a tribute to a master filmmaker like Werner Herzog. Herzog is definitely one of the most talented directors in the world who hasn't really found a niche in America, which is a real shame. This is a great film which I don't think any other filmmaker could have made so beautiful, comical, and overall enjoyable.

I caught this film on BBC4 while flicking through the channels last night. An hour and twenty minutes later I sat in front of my TV, knowing that I had experienced a work of rare film poetry. The plot (and here's the 'spoiler', not that it would spoil any enjoyment of the film), is that an alien from the Andromeda system (or a seriously confused human),played by Brad Dourif, who landed on Earth after fleeing his frozen world, tells the story of a group of Earth astronauts who travel to the frozen Andromedan planet and then come back to Earth. Brad Dourif tells his story from an abandoned city, full of half-finished buildings and broken trailers, that was to have been the mighty capital of Andromedans on Earth. The story is illustrated by footage of NASA missions, diving expeditions, physics lectures, and ancient news reels. What really makes it, however, is the soundtrack. I don't know what the music is, but it sounded like some version Mongolian yodelling. Juxtaposed with the images and storyline, the whole thing becomes strangely moving. Please don't expect a conventional Hollywood storyline- there a many long, apparently monotonous sequences, perhaps reminiscent of Space Odyssey. Just relax into it. If you have any depth, you will not be disappointed.

...but by the end of it, I was left with the feeling that there was a slice of my life I'll never get back. This is an easy film to summarize, though. Good, sometimes arresting, imagery strung on a thin but interesting plot, all accompanied by the world's most annoying sound track. The pacing is glacial. The scenes play out way too long - which is emphasized by the droning atonal background "music".

I can appreciate the parable of being good stewards of our home planet. I can appreciate the wry wit with which the subject of aliens is treated. What's inexcusable, though, are the gross technical gaffes laying around like mines in a film which otherwise goes out of its way to establish its technical credentials.

I can understand and appreciate what Herzog was trying to accomplish with this film. Still, a misfire is a misfire...

When their planet started to die, an alien race set out to evacuate the Andromeda system to other places within the universe that were inhabitable. Several of their ships reached Earth several generations later but by then the founding fathers had died off and left behind a lesser generation. On arrival on Earth things did not go as well as they had planned – attempts to build themselves a capital city to rival Washington DC end with a crumbling, desert collection of ruins. Looking at the journey itself and the problems they encountered, a surviving alien recalls the whole thing.

It would take a real talent to do it but if you were to take all the elements in the plot here you could easily produce an effects-heavy sci-fi epic that stretches over several films or books. So how much talent does it take to do just that using one actor, some expert contributors, underwater footage from under the ice flow and lots of stock footage? I'm not sure of the answer but the second way seems harder because it does deliver the goods in this fascinating film that dances along the line between interesting and pretentious. I found the story worked really well and the overall effect was to produce a sci-fi film as poetry, full of ideas and emotions. It is hard to describe but I found it effortlessly engaging and enjoyed it a great deal.

Of course the delivery was always going to be challenging and I can understand why it has got such a low rating on this very site. It is not a Hollywood sci-fi film, in fact it is not an easy film to put into a box and sell in such a marketplace because it is so unique. The direction is very daring and mostly works because the writing is there to do it. The dialogue is the story and it is very well delivered by Dourif to the point where he is never less than fascinating due to his words but also his convincing delivery of those words. The use of stock footage and locations that are very non-sci-fi are carried by Dourif's story telling but the problems come when he is absent for longer than a few minutes. Extended footage of diving below the ice sheet is interesting but it is the same thing over and over so, without a narrator to move us on and keep us interested, I felt that the film got close to boring. Fortunately this only happens a handful of times. The musical score is again very unusual for sci-fi but it does capture a strange sort of otherworldy sombre air.

Overall then this will probably put most viewers off very quickly. It is as much a piece of poetry as it is a piece of cinema and it is certainly not what you expect from a "sci-fi epic" although that is unquestionably what the story is. At times boring, the film is generally very engaging and interesting and it is well worth checking out to experience it as much as anything else.

We are by now quite commonly aware of the various statistics illustrating our remoteness from our nearest supposedly 'habitable' planet, that even Alpha Centauri, a very close neighbour, is some 3 light years off and many hundreds of years travelling at conventional means (that would be our fastest rocket propulsion in a vacuum, and a slingshot trajectory). But there was something about Herzog's description of this fact, spoken directly into the camera by a suitably intense Brad Dourif (though this is Brad's forte), that hit home, that filled me with that sense of wonder, that was also also tinged with dread. Perhaps it was the context, Herzog's narrative about alien travellers having many generations ago escaped their distant and dying world to eventually arrive here on Earth, attempt to colonise and then witness generations later, humanity's own attempts to escape the dying Earth and seek out a barely habitable world across space.

There is a primary loneliness in this concept, especially so in the human's arrival at that very same long-abandoned world, deciding to cope as best as they can with the liquid-helium atmosphere. Nothing like earth but then nothing else like Earth was anywhere discovered.

This feast of philosophical posers is coloured with actual Nasa on-board shuttle footage, that, although initially falls short of complementing the science-fantasies of the narration, does eventually blend successfully. And by the time this is settled the viewer is already drawn in. The thoughts and visions being presented us, the zero-g astronauts and ice-divers floating to the semi-atonal wailing in Ernst Reijseger's soundtrack, have put us in a place of submission and meditation rare for cinema. It would be interesting to know whether Herzog created this story line around the Nasa footage or the inverse. For by the end of the film, everything is convincing.

A very unusual cine-poem that will stand up to repeat viewing. For i know each time i will come away with the feeling i have been infused with some ethereal wisdom.

g