Just in time for its 25th
anniversary as a band, The Flaming Lips has released its seven-years-gestating
movie Christmas On Mars, seemingly to remind everyone why it was unlikely the Lips
would make it this far in the first place. Ostensibly the story of Mars' first
colonizers confronting psychosis and existential dread on Christmas Eve, Christmas
On Mars hews
closer to avant-garde deconstructions of narrative than the real thing.
Frontman Wayne Coyne (sharing directorial duties with longtime Lips accomplices
Bradley Beesley and George Salisbury) piles on grainy black-and-white film,
sudden lurid shots of color, and amateur actors whose overextended reaction
shots and halting delivery would make the Kuchar brothers proud.
Christmas On Mars mostly plays out on a
dirty, disintegrating space station that takes its cues from Alien's bleak vision of space
travel, but the symbols grafted all over the film are unique to the band.
Anyone who's seen the Lips live (or listened to "Psychiatric Explorations Of The
Fetus With Needles") will be prepared for the onslaught of bloody fetuses and
babies all over the place. Nor is Coyne's emphasis on the universe as a series
of vaginal orifices a shock; the Lips have always cheerfully shown naked chicks
and disturbing surgery with equal abandon. The band's members stick to their accustomed
personas: Coyne is the enigmatic, miraculous alien who arrives in a glowing
ball, Steven Drozd is the deceptively soft-spoken crewmember whose efforts hold
the base together (much as Drozd's musical gifts power Coyne's lyrics), and
bassist Michael Ivins sticks to his customary stoicism.
The main theme, as always,
is confronting death and godlessness in a meaningless universe. "Cosmic
reality, it's a real motherfucker," Fred Armisen announces. Crippled by low
oxygen and their proximity to space's emptiness, the crew waits for a savior
(or Santa Claus) that may never arrive. The screenplay plays like Coyne's
lyrics, announcing its vast themes in plainspoken, disarming ways. Comic relief
mostly comes from the incredibly intense crew commander, a man prone to lines
like "Take a fuckin' shit on my dick." He represents the Lips' Oklahoma-based
background: profane, racist, and suspicious of costume frippery, but ultimately
good at heart. As a movie, Christmas On Mars is mildly but sneakily
engaging; as a synthesis of the band's disparate parts, though, it's gold.
Key features: Band-member interviews and a making-of.
The deluxe edition also comes with the trippy instrumental soundtrack.