The Flaming Lips are loved by fans for not only their music but also for their elaborate live shows which feature anything from puppets to live video feeds to giant plastic bubbles to frontman Wayne Coyne crowd surfing in a giant hamster ball.
So it wasn’t a surprise when the innovative artists sought to try their luck with filmmaking. In an interview on IMDB.com, Coyne said, “The Beatles or Pink Floyd or The Ramones or even the fucking Spice Girls — they’ve got movies and stuff; they’re not just a group.” Neither are the Flaming Lips, as “Christmas on Mars: A Fantastical Film Freakout Featuring the Flaming Lips,” a film seven years in the making, was finally released in Madison on Tuesday, Oct. 21.
Recruiting their friends Adam Goldberg (“Dazed and Confused,” “The Hebrew Hammer”), comedian Fred Armisen (“Saturday Night Live”) and Steve Burns (former host of children’s television show “Blue’s Clues”), The Flaming Lips attempted this flick with a DIY mindset. In addition to filming in their home state of Oklahoma, the band also took upon itself the task of creating its own sets and props. In an interview on Ifc.com it’s also not one to watch while sitting around the fire and drinking eggnog at Christmas.
“Christmas on Mars” follows a troupe of astronauts thrown into panic after the oxygen generator on their space station — ported on Mars — dies. The major point of interest in this avante-garde film is the theme that humans were indeed not meant to live in space and will go insane if they are so forced, depicted through the many hallucinations experienced by the space crew. For example, Major Syrtis constantly sees things turn into fetuses. There is one instance where he believes a sausage another man is eating is a fetus and worriedly asks if he’s going to eat that which is particularly entertaining.
When Major Syrtis confronts his psychiatrist (Adam Goldberg) about his issue, he’s told he is one of the lucky ones. Filmgoers are then shown a fascinating clip of astronauts in a marching band with human vaginas for faces that trample a baby in their path, which was what haunted the Santa Claus-suited man before he committed suicide.
After he learns of the death, Major Syrtis strips the suit off the dead man and seeks out a new Santa Claus to surprise the other station members with. The leader of the space station — who is constantly pumping iron sans a shirt and then yelling at men for coming into his office while he’s not wearing a shirt — offers Syrtis an alien they found outside. The Martian never once speaks, but Syrtis begins to teach him about Christmas anyway, hoping he will understand. All the while there are clips of a woman in her underwear (not cute ones, don’t get too excited) living in a bubble caring for a scientifically-produced baby. With all the hallucinations about dead babies and vaginas, viewers get the idea that whether or not this baby survives is important.
However, this “harmony” comes to an end when an important oxygen generator breaks beyond repair. Fear starts to take over the station as they realize their lives might be coming to an end. Still, the juxtaposition of somber moments that include the broken generator and the suicide of the Santa Claus man and joyous ones such as the successful birth of the scientifically-created baby create another point of interest for this film.
But perhaps “interesting” is the best word to describe this film, released on DVD Nov. 11. For avante-garde film fans, this may be a winner. But for everyone else, have a couple beers or smoke a bowl before trying to sit down and watch The Flaming Lips’ “Christmas on Mars.”
2 stars out of 5
