If you want car chases, blue aliens or Brangelina, stop reading now – this film is not for you. If, on the other hand, you want an exposition on the means and methods of theatre-practitioner Antero Alli’s school of Paratheatre, well, actually this film might not be for you either. However, if you are fan of arthouse cinema, the colourful works of Kenneth Anger, or the nightmarish delirium of Lynch’s Inland Empire, then this low-budget film might just be the ticket.

Through a series of flashbacks, combined with video-diary and archive footage, the Invisible Forest follows a period in the life of theatre director Alex (played by actual director Antero Alli) as he leads his theatre company into a forest to engage with his ‘paratheatrical’ method. During this time he is repeatedly confronted by the bizarre ghost of surrealist French playwright Antonin Artaud, who attempts to instruct and enlighten Alex on the principles of his Theatre of Cruelty, the central theme about which this film revolves. In a sumptuous and Luciferian ‘heart of darkness’ narrative the director, Alex begins to question himself, while about him, his troupe externalises expressions of the strange mythic breakdown he is undergoing.

At first glance this film appears too clumsy to be pretentious. Then a double-take occurs and one realises that the film is far from clumsy, and certainly not pretentious in what it seeks to deliver. It is undeniably naive on certain cinematic qualities that, in their own way, serve to draw us towards the meat of what is important to the film: the exploration of certain metaphysical ideas through a practice of, performance; living mysticism in the body of expression. It is in the cinematic naivety that some of refreshing vitality present in live performance, really shines through. It is raw, it is impulsive, and it is rarely crystal clear. And therein lies the spirit of Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty.

I shall be honest – and try to set a precedent by this. Watching it with a critical eye it is easy to shoot holes in this film. So why did I find myself enthralled, buoyant and persistently impressed by The Invisible Forest?

Like some of the most powerful films, it is precisely because it is not a ‘straight-forward watch’ that it begins to creep inside you. It soon appears the apparent problems with the The Invisible Forest, or with my relationship with the film, are reflections of  its deliberately discordant elements throughout. So, rather than list the things I like about this film, I am going to consider what appears to be its problems, and why I actually like them.

Perhaps the first thing one notices when watching the film is the discordant and jarring use of different cameras and film. Whilst the clear visual difference between Super-8 and digital Hi-Def is unashamedly brutal, and not a happy marriage. Each camera type is wed to a different narrative thread, allowing us to visually distinguish these strands, that we can both maintain an awareness of the continuity of each strand, whilst giving us the distance to contrast one against the other.

It is during my consideration of this juxtaposition, that Alli’s character, Alex, describes the work he and his troupe are engaged with: to juxtapose discordant monologues and dialogues from Shakespeare, in an exploration of collision and coincidence. This is essentially what is being paralleled by the camerawork: content and structure exploring a key tenet of Artaud’s 2^nd manifesto of the Theatre of Cruelty:

“These means, consisting of differing intensities of colour, light or sound, using vibrations… bringing tonality into play, can only achieve their full effect by using discords.” – Artaud

It fast becomes clear that not only is this film being used as a medium for the direct, in-character, discussion of ideas, but is, as a medium, being used to explore the connotations of Artaud’s ideas, pitching divergent elements against each other to create a vivacity through constrast and sensation.

Through the juxtaposition of film mediums, we cannot help but be made aware of the presence of the camera, and consequently, the cameraman. Such awareness recalls certain jaw-dropping twists in Lynch’s Inland Empire, and Jodorowsky’s Holy Mountain, with whom this film shares intellectual and sensory sympathy. In both films, as with Alli’s Invisible Forest, we are brutally reminded we are watching a film, and yet in all three there is a continued seduction into the world of the film, creating a unique tension between immersion and dissociation.

This tension and juxtaposition is taken further in the realisation much of the footage we are watching appears to be extracted from archive footage of Alli’s real-life troupe engaged in rehearsal, exploration and experimentation.

The barriers between fictional narrative and apparent real life are blurred. Is this life-imitating-art, or art-imitating-life-imitating-art? The answer to this conundrum leaps out from the pages of the manifesto of the Theatre of Cruelty: “… there will be no distinctive divisions, no gap between life and theatre.”

Antero Alli’s performance during the therapy scenes is radiant. The subtlety in the largely improvised performance is utterly convincing. Are we watching Alex the fictitious director, or Alli’s the actual director? And this seems to be the crux of these parts in the movie. The film is a strange Schrodinger’s Cat, occupying two mutually exclusive states at the same time: it is both real and fictitious. Alex is the creation and extension of Antero: Life and Theatre are the same thing. It’s all real; it’s all made-up.

Not all of the performances are as beautifully ambiguous as Alli’s. Again the jarring juxtaposition forcibly confronts us, insisting we do not forget we are watching a fictitious film about a troupe of actors, played by a real troupe, who are at times acting, at other times that are acting not-acting, whilst at other times they are just plain not-acting. This juxtaposition is no where better exemplified than when a Luciferian character (James L. Wagner) amidst the boughs of a tree, rants and raves about the void in a most outrageously overly-theatrical fashion only to reach the end of his speech and, pausing, allows a transformation to cross his face that speaks of a sublime vision of reality, so touching, so authentic, it might have only been made possible by contrast with the previous melodrama of the scene.

Furthermore, we are not seeing the portrayal of training as we might expect to see in a Hollywood montage, but footage of real people, genuinely engaging with the work. In this space, so closely identifiable with the Invisible Forest from which the film takes its name, in which non-linear space the film is set, we are continually assailed with layers of ambiguity and discordance, with Artaud’s vision for theatre and its essentially aggressive means, being launched upon us. We cannot be a simply passive viewer, but must become embroiled in personal reflection and interpretation. Again and again, any apparent naivety only serves to reveal the authenticity of the intent behind these facets of Alli’s work and ideas.

Following in Grotowski’s path, and in a strange sympathy with Esoteric and Occult traditions, much of Alli’s work and the training of his actors is not concerned with the staging of shows for the entertainment of an audience: it is about personal exploration and development of the actor and their body into a tool for personal initiation. As we watch the film, we must bear in mind this very quality is inescapable for those performing within the film – much of what we are seeing is real people engaged in real training.

The film is the performers equivalent to the magicians grimoire. It is a vehicle for the explication of ideas that are useful to the actor exploring the metaphysical application of this artform. It encodes and encapsulates essentially aphorisms dealing with the location of the self in the world, and the medium of acting or performance as a means of instigating and realising transformative actions. Like the best magical grimoires, they are largely inaccessible without the reader, the magician, investing something of their own time and energy: this is the diabolic pact. Nothing of this films intrinsic value is given freely; it must be worked at by the viewer; it requires attention, acceptance and reflection. And in engaging with that work, we are in a way becoming complicit in its mission, and the pact is signed.

It is not the film of an accomplished filmmaker, and I am not sure it’s supposed to be working towards that end. This is not a filmmakers film, exploring the territory of cinematic possibility – it is not concerned with that. Rather, it is an idea-driven film depicting individuals exploring themselves through performance. It is a rare insight into the performative and theatrical – paratheatrical – attitudes, physicality and meta-physics of an ostensibly live genre, audaciously captured on film with remarkable sensitivity.

Ulysses Black

The Invisible Forest, and other films by Antero Alli are available on DVD from Antero’s site.

You can check our interview with Antero Alli on our podcast here.

I was made aware of director Tawd B. Dorenfeld fairly recently when I watched the psychedelic, stop-motion animation thing he directed for the recent Secret Chiefs 3 live DVD. It was an enjoyable selection of baffling imagery to occupy my eyes while I listened to some Secret Chiefs 3 stuff that did not make the actual DVD.

The Anna Cabrini Chronicles is a quartet of short films dealing with madness and suicide, scored by Secret Chiefs 3 Trey Spruance … sounds encouraging doesn’t it? I would normally do a detailed appraisal of the individual films, then a round critique of the whole. I find it a little bit difficult to do either in this case because it’s such a disjointed affair. The “stories” involve a selection of people doing battle with personal demons which are dealt with in a highly stylised and figurative fashion, which makes it difficult to discern what is actually going on. This is a device which he uses very successfully in some respects, as the finished product is definitely tinged with madness. Stop motion illustration, rapid fire edits, strange angles, bursts of very loud and disorientating music. All of this and more combine to create a film that is certainly unsettling and memorable. But is it any good? In my opinion it is strangely average. There is no real narrative thread and not much in common between the films. His success in making them look and feel “crazy” is inversely proportionate to his success in making a film that you actually enjoy.

I bought this mainly because I am an obsessive record nerd, and the score by Spruance was the hook that got me. It features some unreleased material, but only in snatches throughout and there is an abundance of familiar Secret Chiefs stuff on there too. Mostly the music and images work well together but there is occasional incongruity too and I can’t help feeling that the film would have been more successful if it had utilised other music in addition to Secret Chiefs. In short, this is for uber-Spruance fans only.

Kim Monaghan

I became aware of this film when I read an interview with the directors of The Blair Witch project (possibly my all time favourite horror film). The production company behind “Blair Witch” was called Haxan Pictures and they explained that the name originated from this 1922 “documentary”.

Directed by Benjamin Christensen, the film set out both to summarise the history of witchcraft and also explain it in a “modern” context. The film begins with some explanation of the medieval view of the world, heaven and hell, and how witchcraft was viewed and represented historically. Cue lots of salacious medieval woodcuts and some pointing with sticks. The second part of the film shows how witches spent their time, mainly dreaming of Satan and rubbing themselves down with witch ointment. There are some pretty nifty effects on show for a film made in 1922, and this section gives us our first glimpse of the expensive set pieces involving Christensen made up as Satan. The dream sequences and reconstructions of black masses are very atmospheric, and there is something quite sinister about them. Christensen’s constant snake-like tongue flicking whilst in character as the Devil is grotesque and the cast of amateurs give a surreal but compelling feel to the reconstructions.

The third part of the film deals mainly with the consequences of being accused of witchcraft. The methods of the Inquisition are shown at length in the case of an old woman who is falsely accused. The “witch” is tortured in a deeply unconvincing fashion, but it is when Christensen blithely mentions using thumbscrews on his leading lady (at her insistence, he claims) that things become disturbing. The final part of the film takes the enlightened approach of questioning how many innocent souls were dispatched on the basis of having some mild psychological disturbance, easily diagnosed now but incomprehensibly strange back then.

There are so many memorable moments in this film. The gluttonous friar under the influence of a love potion, the old woman chasing money that disappears away from her in a startling stop motion sequence. It is no surprise to find out that the film was the most expensive Scandinavian silent film ever made, and whilst it has very obviously dated, it is still an extremely stylish affair. It is this panache that appears to have kept the film in the corner of the public eye, with a number of different versions of the film appearing over the years. There was a 1968 version narrated by William S Burroughs (which is about half an hour shorter than the original) which is most noteworthy for a startling jazz soundtrack which is totally inappropriate and completely bonkers, but highly entertaining. There have also been not one but two new soundtracks produced for the film as recently as 2007.

I would highly recommend watching Haxan, it is an endearing and spooky document of silent film-making at its best and most charismatic, although you’ll probably learn more about witchcraft from Wikipedia.

Daddytank

This is a weird chapter in the history of the Lips and a long one too. Filmed in Wayne’s back garden and locale over the course of seven years, it has become a highly anticipated event and was finally released just before Christmas last year. A review on the back of the DVD has taken a lot of the work out of this for me. I quote “Imagine if Stanley Kubrick, Frank Capra and Jim Jarmusch got into a bar brawl and the Flaming Lips won…” (Jaan Uhelzski / Relix). Taking elements from all these filmmakers and throwing them in a blender operated by Coyne, they’ve come up with a film that is utterly Flaming Lips.

The story is vague and deals with a life threatening crisis on a decidedly odd space outpost on Mars. (At Christmas, if you’re not keeping up). This setting is really only an excuse for a bunch of set pieces that take you on a wander through the subconscious of the band with themes cropping up that will be familiar to fans. Babies, head injuries, space and the over arching theme of wondering what the hell it is we’re doing here in the Universe. These themes run hand in hand with the strange opto-pessimism that pervades the bands music, with life and its oddness being celebrated at all turns but the spectre of death always lurking in the background. The film lurches from the sublime to the ridiculous with a random cast of actors giving a random selection of performances which range from a brilliant one scene performance from drummer Kliph Scurlock (name dude…) to the rollercoaster ride that is Steven Drozd’s performance as lead character. I say rollercoaster because you watch him swing from being unable to act at all to being completely mesmerizing, sometimes within the same scene. In one particularly moving scene he is obviously smacked up to the eyeballs, which doesn’t help with the course of the film, but as part of the ongoing portrait of Drozd’s increasingly long-term heroin addiction it is quite a raw moment.

The special effects and costumes are fantastic throughout, with their years of attempting to blow fans minds with light, sound and video really paying off. Weird home built sets never really make you think they’re in space but they certainly convey a sense of other-wordliness and it features some of the best space suits I’ve ever seen in a sci-fi film. The soundtrack for all this madness is blared through their own patented Zeta Bootis surround sound system, which likes to accentuate moments of particular oddness by GETTING VERY LOUD. This sounds like it would be annoying but it actually makes it quite a visceral experience. All this audio-visual freakery is balanced out with an exceptionally cosmic soundtrack of low key synths that sound like Eno at around his “Music For Films” stage. In fact most of the music would not sound amiss on this album or on Eno’s “Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks” and it’s an interesting change of pace for the band who have come to specialize in quirky power-pop over the last couple of albums.

I would heartily recommend this film to anyone who likes B movies, sci-fi or just crazy ass films in general as it is by no means a “fans only” affair. Oh and keep an eye out for the scene with the alien astronaut holding a baby with a head injury. The “alien” gave me quite a shock when I realized what I was looking at.

Daddytank

perfectplace31

Ipecac 100 – A Perfect Place 

Is it really almost a decade since Ipecac appeared, and have they really reached their hundredth release? Yes is the answer. In fact, they’re actually up to IPC108. A hundred and eight albums since I got my grubby mitts on IPC 01 the first Fantomas album. And to celebrate this landmark release, they have taken their first steps into the world of film. This is a double disc package for under a tenner, with one disc being the movie and the other disc being the Patton produced soundtrack, so I figured it would be appropriate to review them separately.

 

The Movie

This is a short film which is long for a short, coming in at just over twenty minutes. It is a black and white noir thriller…of sorts but I don’t want to review it in too much depth because it will spoil the surprise. The two protagonists Mark Boone Jr and Bill Moseley are both indie flick favourites, having cropped up in various supporting roles over the years and they give the film a suitably ambiguous feel. There are a few nice set-piece vignettes that are dotted throughout, which change the tone of the picture subtly from its initial aspect to the denouement. All in all it may not be the most remarkable short film you’ll ever see, and it may owe a considerable debt to David Lynch / Jim Jarmusch, but it is certainly enjoyable and will stand up to repeated viewing well being a stylish and promising inaugural effort for Fantoma films.

 

The Soundtrack

This is an excursion into Mike Patton’s “noir soundtrack / exotica” persona that have surfaced in the records he has made since Ipecac was conceived. Taking elements of “General Patton”, “Patton / Kaada” and the more exotic / jazz leanings of Mr. Bungle he has created a distinctive soundtrack that benefits the film considerably. Whistling, bongos, brass and Theremin all take parts in recreating the central overture which features in almost all of the tracks. It is a disciplined release for Patton, only occasionally freaking out on tracks such as in “Car Radio AM/FM” although he does indulge himself in spectacular fashion on the disturbed faux gramophone jazz of “A Dream of Roses” (my favourite track). The soundtrack is basically incidental in the film, to be honest, but it does work well as a stand alone album and it also lets Mr. Patton vent his “I want to be an Italian opera pimp” leanings while giving me the opportunity to put just a few more coins his and Ipecac’s way.    

 

DaddyTank

Title:  Mike Patton - ‘A Perfect Place’

Label: Ipecac Records/Southern (Europe)

Released: Available Now

Format: CD/DVD (inclusive)

Ed – I reviewed this release a few months back, but I always felt it deserved a better appraisal than it got. So, baring that in mind, here is Daddytank’s re-review 

Title: Fantomas/Melvins Big Band 

 

Label: Ipecac Records/Southern 

Released: Available Now

Format: DVD

 

 

 

Mike Patton is a difficult man to keep up with, so when I spotted this live DVD recently, I presumed it was a new release. Turns out it actually appeared in August, so I guess the credit crunch has been successfully keeping me out of record shops. Thank God for Christmas and the opportunity to buy myself a load of shouty stuff.

 

I have utterly failed to see Mike Patton live, in any of his incarnations, and the most recent mental picture I have of him is from watching Faith No More’s “Video Croissant” a couple of years ago. It has a brilliant video of Patton with long hair and lycra bike shorts on, jumping about like a special needs New Kids On The Block reject. Amusing as this video was, it doesn’t actually reflect where he is at the moment (musically speaking), mainly because it was made in the early 90′s. Mike Patton in the late Noughties (yes, it is the Noughties) is a calmer and more focused creature than the years he spent in Faith No More / Mr. Bungle, but this would not be a fact obvious to the casual viewer. He whistles and gurns his way through the opening Melvins tunes before shredding some of the more popular tunes off Fantomas “Book One”. His ability to recreate some of the guttural sounds and shrieky bird noises is quite astonishing, and the band play this insanely difficult record with unnerving ease. The opening section is banished by “Electric Long Thin Wire” where (sometime Melvins guitarist) David Scott Stone waves an electric long thin wire round a bit. It sounds better than itsounds. From this point they pretty much alternate between tracks from three Fantomas records and Melvins tracks. The set list bears a distinct resemblance to the set they played for “Millenium Monsterworks” (Fantomas-Melvin’s Big Band release on Ipecac from 2002) which is helpful in some respects, because I don’t really know, or particularly appreciate the Melvins. I am prepared to admit that I am an idiot and that the Melvins are awesome, but I have always preferred fast to slow. Call me retarded if you will. Being familiar with most of the Melvins tracks eased some of the pain I felt on realizing I was getting a lot more Melvins for my money than I was Fantomas. Patton’s Fantomas is an exercise in hyperactive noise and a study in how to annoy almost everyone who listens to music and even when a song lasts more than a minute it takes in twenty or thirty directions. This means that even though they play half and half of each bands material, the Fantomas stuff is over before you know it while the Melvins tunes seem to go on and on. Whilst I’m complaining I might add that there is not a sniff of anything off “Delirium Cordia”. Maybe he’ll play it in all it’s single track glory someday. Oh and my final complaint … it says something about animations in the descriptive blurb but there are just a few abstract music video images scattered throughout, which are so scarce that you barely notice them after a while.

 

That said there are a number of highlights on the DVD. The magnificent, crowd-baiting “Page 23″ where Dave Lombardo and Dale Crover duel with their hi-hats for aeons, while the drunker and less patient members of the audience go apoplectic with rage. The improvised section in which Patton “plays” the band, taking it in turns to animate / conduct them, while he gibbers and screams along. And finally “Skin Horse” which is a beautiful song, and easily my favourite Melvins track.

 

This DVD is a poor substitute for seeing the “Big Band” live but it is still a very exciting facsimile and it has given rise to my only resolution for the New Year. I will see Patton the next time he’s in this country…even if he’s touring Peeping Tom.

 

Daddytank

So we’ve been meaning to start reviewing games here for a while now, and what better game to review than one that involves endless ‘pwning’ of Zombies? Anyone that knows me, and listens to the show, knows that we luurve Zombies. Now Daddytank joins rank and shows his love for bashing the drooling bastards into oblivion in this awesome review…

 

I would have submitted this review weeks ago, but I haven’t been able to do anything since discovering this game but maintain a basic relationship with my family (yes/no answers only) and shuffle through my working day, while waiting for night to fall…and the zombies to come.

 

Left 4 Dead is a zombie apocalypse, experienced through the eyes of a gang of survivors who are trying to get from a place that is infested with the un-dead to one of four rescue points. Between the start and the rescue point are a number of “safe houses” stacked with weapons and first aid, and as you travel towards your objective searching through the large maps, you will find helpful items every now and then, but not as often as you find zombies. And don’t expect “old school” zombies because these are the new zombies as seen in 28 Days Later and Dawn of the Dead (the fine remake) which seem to have become the industry standard. They’re quite happy to stumble about like Mogadon-ed tramps until they notice you (or you put a misguided bullet into an arm or leg) but once they’re riled they sprint and weave like Lt. Richard Winters in a rage.

 

The single player is an enjoyable introduction but the only way to get the most from this game is with three headset-ted friends and a supply of macho catchphrases lifted from Bruce Campbell’s secret journal. Listen to the bitter recriminations fly, as you mow down a horde of zombies alerted by your dim-witted mate, as he sets off every car alarm on the street. Cover your ears as your large testosterone infused chums make high pitched squeal-y noises as they’re dragged off into the woods by Smokers. Fire blindly, spinning in circles, as decaying faces leer at you through the fine sheen of Boomer vomit on your face. Feel your spirit crumble as you hear the distant sound of a Tank approaching, while you hobble around looking for somewhere that’s vaguely defensible. Moan in a dispirited fashion as you realise that you are not going to make it to the boat/plane/helicopter/truck, you are in fact going to provide your intestines as an improvised zombie hat.

 

This game is easily one of the smoothest and most fun multiplayer games I’ve ever played on my PC. Not since Call of Duty have I spent so much time immersed in fantasy violence against strangers and bots. It looks beautiful, it’s simple and you can even play as one of the zombie bosses in the Versus mode, where you alternate playing stages as Survivors and Zombies. If you have been spending a lot of time with a console or even with actual people, it’s time for a change. You need to have the dreams I have, dreams of the snarling undead lit up by the flashing barrels of my double pistols. It’s time to go and buy Left 4 Dead.     

 

DaddyTank

Title: Hanson Brothers – ‘It’s a Living’ 

Label: Wrong Records/Southern Records

Released: Available Now

Format: CD/DVD & Double Vinyl

 

 

 

 

I love it when I get pleasant suprises, and this the latest opus from NoMeansNo‘s oddball Bar-comedy-punk side-project The Hanson Brothers, has plenty of them!

 

The first thing that surprised me was my own lack of any observational skills, and how I should probably eye-ball the press release a bit before slamming CDs into my Mac. This CD has a DVD on the otherside, which really baffled for a second! (I had put the disk in the wrong way!) 

 

First up, the music! THB play a blend of punk rock that harks back to the good-ol days of the Ramones and The Ruts-era Punk, but with the added twist of cleverly placed (and actually funny) odd-ball comedy. The CD is setup to sound like a live radio-session, interspersed with band interviews and rants, which actually works really well. If, like me, you are a fan of NoMeansNo, you will instantly recognise the ‘sound’ of this record…in fact this kind of reminds me of their earlier releases, but with more of a, dare I say, comedy-concept. 

 

The DVD, which I ended up rewinding once I realised my mistake, is, at first glance, a ‘how to brew your own beer’ instructional video with a few live songs thrown in. Closer observation reveals that songs are actually Ramones covers with altered lyrics and titles such as ‘Blitzkrieg Hops’, which ties in nicely with the beer theme presented. The brothers really ham-up their performances, and actually really do give you a pretty decent step-by-step guide to making your own home-brew beer. All in all then, an odd, but welcome addition to this whole package.

 

Overall, this is a really nice little package, and one that I would actually recomend to anyone looking for a good fun, old fashioned punk record. The DVD is an odd-extra, but a welcome one, and well worth the money at a mere £8.99! Great for old fans and new ones alike, this will be blasting in the SittingNow office for the forseable!

 

4.5/5

 

Ken Eakins

You can download a free track from this record on the Southern Records site here

Fantastic new addition to the SittingNow writing-crew, Adrian Dobbie, gets down and dirty with the recent Julian Doyle (Monty Python)/Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden) written, Chemical Wedding. Is this release finally what acolytes of Aleister Crowley have been waiting for? or another Magickly-huge disapointment?…

Carry-On Crowley?

Among occultists and Thelemites specifically there has long been a certain desire to see their hero Crowley immortalised on film. The exploits of the Master Therion would seem to offer pre-packaged prime subject matter for an industry that thrives on titillation and sensationalism, but while general interest in Crowley does seem to be on the rise, the definitive Crowley film remains to be made. In the last few years we’ve seen a number of documentaries of varying quality and lately the internet has been awash with teasers and half-baked trailers promising more dramatized takes on the life and times of the Beast 666. Yet none of these have seemed more likely to come to fruition than Bruce Dickinson’s project ‘Chemical Wedding’. For those who may not know who Dickinson is, he is the yodelling, spandex-sporting front man of legendary UK metal band Iron Maiden. I have to admit that when I first heard about the Brit-rock legend touting his screenplay around Hollywood, my heart sank. In my opinion, Dickinson was possibly the worst person to be planning a movie about Crowley; I just couldn’t see how a man so steeped in juvenile horror-movie imagery from his years on the heavy metal circuit could possibly come up with anything other than a hatchet job if let loose on the Crowley story. So when the imminent release of the movie was announced I’ll admit I feared the worst but my curiosity was piqued nonetheless. Upon seeing the trailer online I actually thought it could be a good film after all, if slightly sensationalist. When I heard that the premier was happening last month just a few miles from where I live, I just had to get a ticket. So off I duly went to London’s West End to see what the fuss was all about.

The story opens in 1947 with two young students visiting an ageing Crowley at his lodgings in Hastings, England. We learn that one is a regular caller, while the other is nervous about meeting the Beast for the first time. As they enter Crowley’s dark bedsitting room, they find the prophet of the new aeon ailing but still lewdly vigorous. Crowley however is preoccupied by the exploits of his young acolytes in Pasadena. He has learned that Jack Parsons & L Ron Hubbard have been busying themselves in attempts to produce a Moonchild and Crowley is not best pleased. With this initial portrayal of the Beast in his latter years we get the first hint that the film will be taking more than a few artistic liberties. The man we see before us, although masterfully realised, is the stout, bald Crowley of two decades previous and certainly not the wizened pipe smoker that we know he was during his final years. Nevertheless – we are only treated to a few minutes of Crowley in this incarnation before he is mortally struck down. He dramatically celebrates his greater feast during his young friends’ visit, presumably as a direct result of the dark forces unleashed by his two wards on the other side of the Atlantic.

We now fast forward to turn-of-the-millennium Cambridge where a team of visiting scientists from Cal Tech are preparing to unveil a state-of-the-art virtual reality suit before the assembled academics of the University. The suit is controlled by a supercomputer called – wait for it – the Z93, whose chief programmer, a certain Victor Newman, just happens to be a student of the works of Aleister Crowley. We learn that Newman has distilled the rituals of Crowley’s magick into a numerical code that he has fed directly into the program that runs the VR suit. Eager to test his invention before its official maiden voyage, he manages to lure the bumbling, stuttering, classics tutor, Professor Haddo (Simon Callow), into giving the suit a sneaky whirl. The hapless professor, fresh from an on-campus masonic meeting, agrees to take part and it’s here that the story properly begins.

Haddo dons the suit and is bombarded with the accumulated power of Crowley’s rituals in virtual form. When we next see him, the shy, floppy haired don has disappeared and instead, he has morphed into a strangely familiar, bald, menacing character, wilfully striding down the University’s corridors on his way to deliver a lecture on Shakespeare. In the course of ensuing events it becomes obvious to all, not least the Cambridge don who years ago visited the Beast on the day he died, that Haddo’s body has been taken over by a ‘virtual Crowley’, who has plans to stick around for good. In order to do so, the resurrected occultist must perform a magickal operation called the ‘Chemical Wedding’ whereby, with the help of a Scarlet Woman, he will summon the demon Choronzon and so take permanent possession of his new host.

From here on in the film becomes an example of the kind of high-camp, low-budget British thriller-cum-horror that we haven’t seen much of since the demise of the Hammer marque nearly 30 years ago. As his quest to find the perfect scarlet woman unfolds, the reincarnated Crowley sets out on a rampage round Cambridge leaving a trail of flagellation, sex magick, murder and scatology in his wake. The girl in his sights turns out to be Leah, a plucky young student reporter and it isn’t long before she and a visiting American professor called Mathers team up and set about thwarting Crowley’s plans for permanent reincarnation.

It’s wacky stuff, and in places it’s laugh-out-loud funny. In fact it’s as much Carry-On as it is Hammer Horror. Callow camps it up royally in cartoon Crowley mode and in so doing puts his fellow cast members in the shade. There are a few stand-out scenes: an operation to enlist the help of a hapless aide is hilarious, Crowley’s method of acquiring a rather natty purple suit and fedora hat brought howls from the audience and in an act of sex magick designed to entrap his muse we see Crowley ‘charging’ a talisman and then sending it via fax to Leah.  She discovers a rather sticky mess coming through on the copy at her end…

It’s all good fun when it works, but all too often the clumsy editing, redundant plot twists, below-par acting and the shot-on-digital-media feel let the picture down. Some will undoubtedly enjoy playing ‘spot the Crowley reference’ as the film blunders on. In-jokes abound; half the characters in the film bear names not too dissimilar to associates of the Beast and there’s enough trivia to satisfy the nerd in any of us. However, those looking for a positive or serious take on Crowley’s doctrine of Thelema will be disappointed – it’s just never mentioned. Not once. On the other hand, those fearing misrepresentation can largely breathe a sigh of relief, the Crowley character’s murderous tendencies notwithstanding. The film does attempt to pose some real questions about the nature of the relationship between magick and science (VR as ersatz astral plane, the potential for downloading personalities as digital information) but it ends up trying to cover so much ground that it fails to do any more than scratch the surface of a fascinating subject, while various plot devices such as Crowley’s masonic connections are alluded to but never elaborated. As such it’s as frustrating as it is fun. The definitive film about Crowley this certainly isn’t, but if you have a penchant for oddball British camp-horror, who knows? This film may just be for you.

2/5

Adrian Dobbie

www.chemicalweddingmovie.co.uk

I think this DVD was released on a ‘need-to-know’ basis; I for one, had totally forgotten it was available! So, imagine my surprise when this arrived in the Sitting Now mailbag! 

This was well timed by Ipecac, it’s been a while since the last Fantomas record, Suspended Animation  and I think fans of Mike Patton‘s crazy cut-up metal supremos, used to a pretty much annual release, are starting to get a bit itchy for new material.

Ipecac released a CD of a similar show a few years back and for some reason, I think shoddy sound levels, I couldn’t get into it. That mistake has been rectified in this release, however, and what you see is pretty much what happened on the day both audibly, and visually (I was at the show). 

I wasn’t too sure about the animations added into the mix at first, but you soon realise that they compliment, rather than hinder your enjoyment of the show. One of the truly weird elements of this release has to be in the DVD commentary. Buzz and Dale of the Melvins, the promoter of the show, the (I think) filmmaker and Danny Devito (what the hell?) deliever a rather random conversation that includes a quite amusing skit on ‘how to rip off a band’.

All in all, I would recomend this DVD to anyone looking for a good live Fantomas show, but Patton’s additions to some of the Melvins songs may annoy hardcore fans of Buzz Osbourne’s doom-army! Now, give us a new album!

4/5

Ken Eakins