The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

The Man Who Fell to Earth: A Review

I'm not sure where to place this film in my mind quite yet and can't decide whether or not it was crap.

I picked this up from netflix, intentionally keeping my self from knowing much about it aside from it being in the Criterion Collection and that it's David Bowie's first starring movie role. Little did I know that I'd come out of the two and a half hour ordeal witnessing the penes of both Bowie and Rip Torn...

The film is something like an erotic sci-fi drama, an English erotic sci-fi drama... and seeing that as the intention, I think it's freaking awful. Great sci-fi concept, Bowie comes to Earth in an effort to transport water back to his desert planet, but it gets totally ruined by the love plot running throughout, which is fleshed out poorly, despite the fourty-five minutes it utterly consumes in the beginning half of the flick.

I've also come to the conclusion that there is a very different sensibility about sex in England compared to the US and especially between 1976 and 2008. The intimate scenes were so very uncomfortable. After seeing David Bowie rub his nipples (one later gets cut off) and suck gin off the end of a revolver, my life will never be the same. On the other hand there where a few moments where great. There were some very big ideas at play that would coalesce very subtly and it didn't get too philosophical or up its own a**.

All in all, a very pretty, sexually-disturbing film. I didnt expect it to turn out that way, but I guess any movie where Bowie plays an alien is a prime situation for some glittery-intergalactic-sexcapades, but you know, hindsight's 20/20.

Man, Nicolas Roeg, you're good with a camera, but you're twisted.