Review: 'Christmas On Mars'

I was fortunate enough to be in the audience for the premiere screening of the new movie by The Flaming Lips, called Christmas On Mars, apparently just wrapping production after seven years. The Flaming Lips were the other band at the festival besides Death Cab that I really wanted to try to understand better; my impression of their music has always been that it seems too contrived for my taste, but they clearly inspire legions and legions of fans. In line for the movie, I was introduced to the band's drummer, Kliph, and I told him flat out, "I don't get your music yet." He said, "Have you seen us live? It'll make a lot more sense when you see us live." He also made it clear that I shouldn't base my judgment of the Lips on seeing Christmas On Mars; fair enough. Inside the movie tent, I was surrounded by such fandom that I felt like an interloper amongst the faithful; when the lead singer, Wayne, came out to personally introduce the movie, the place went nuts.

At any rate, the film is a low-budget, mostly black and white sci-fi movie about an American outpost on Mars in some distant future. The crew has been there for a year, during which time they've all slowly begun to go insane from the isolation and the unbelievable nature of their situation; a recurring theme is "Man was not meant to live in space." It's Christmas Eve, and a scientist played by Steven, the band's guitar player (who turns in a surprisingly good performance), is trying to organize a singing of Christmas carols to help lift spirits, but the guy who is supposed to play Santa goes crazy and throws himself out a hatch onto the surface of Mars. As they go to collect the guy's body, an alien super-being appears, played by Wayne. He never speaks. Meanwhile, some clueless technicians accidentally destroy the last remaining oxygen generator thingie, so they're all going to die. Oh and also, the movie starts with Wayne the alien super-being spitting some weird cosmic ejaculate out of his mouth that flies through space and impregnates what turns out to be the only woman you ever see on this outpost, played I believe by Wayne's wife.

So they're nursing this weird space baby in her womb by keeping her in a bubble and injecting vital fluids into her womb via this weird aperture on her stomach. Eventually Wayne the alien super-being is put into the Santa suit and the movie ends with a weirdly hopeful deus ex machina, which ordinarily would irritate me - but in the context of this film, it doesn't matter. The texture of the movie is what's important, and despite the Solarisesque pacing, we were constantly rewarded with surprising character moments, unexpected imagery, and intensely loud surround sound; it stayed linear enough to keep my attention, while regularly hitting me with completely surreal images just for good measure (indeed, I never knew how much I needed to see a vaginal-headed marching band until I saw this movie). Sharp little details in the background (like a sign that read "CAUTION DO NOT START THIS MACHINE") kept sliding past; the low-budget aesthetic was embraced with many clever, deft touches (at one point, we barely catch a tray of lab gear being pulled from what looked like an old, dressed-up electric stove).

In a recorded introduction, Wayne said his subconscious influences for the movie included 2001, Eraserhead, and The Holy Mountain; but I also saw this as a clear descendant of the underappreciated Dark Star in terms of its bleakly comic approach to the existentialism of deep space. Christmas On Mars is clearly not for everybody, but it's nevertheless a beautiful achievement. I enjoyed the hell out of it, and can't wait to foist a DVD screening on my friends someday. (View the trailer, which contains a small amount of footage that didn't make it into the final cut of the film.)