Alien Visitor

If you liked "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" - you'll probably like this film. Don't look for special effects - it's more about ideas. It's a bit on the preachy side, but it's head and shoulders above most of the easily forgettable movies produced these days. By the way, it doesn't have much action either - just some simply presented ideas worth thinking about.

The film is a mix of things that shouldn't work but many do. Despite it's unity of style--virtually every scene is shot exactly the same way, the two leads are so good and work so well together that the fact it's a talkfest kinda' doesn't matter, and the fact that it's best element is the relationships/love that develops between sexy alien and dorky earth man builds an emotional pull probably because it's all a film about the two of them. Each actor is well cast and couldn't be better, she seems convincingly superior and times, he seems doltish but later quite handsome and rather deep==these attributes being displayed at the perfect moments. We never learn the names of either character in the film--a device that works. The film is full of devices, some pretty distracting.

The film is very much like a stage play, even a planetarium show, only the multiple locations and constant time-lapsing make it purely a movie at the same time. The style is unique enough to work much of the time.

Being science fiction, it will naturally draw some smart ass retorts and deserves some of them, but the film is about differing world views, the details of those worlds may be wrong at times, but it's really just a framework, you can almost say it's about the differences between men and women and how they can work for and against each other.

What fails is the filmmakers "hug a tree/save the earth" message. For a film that becomes so much about two people's relationship to then try to jump the a broad view "issue" it's trying to sell fails. It has to. Stories are at their best when we relate specifically to individuals, not when they try to boil down individuals into groups and causes.

The framing device of the movie of the whole story being told round a campfire to two kids leads to a clunky final scene selling the tree hugger message. Now don't get me wrong I'm all for tree hugging but it's like having too much candy all at once. Even the right message and idea can be delivered in the wrong way.

Again though this is a big though minor problem compared to what the two actors do and the parts they play. The film credits them and the crew with coming up with additional script material--a rare credit to see from a writer director.

At times fascinating and moving at less times a bit the same and ham handed in it's message. Still worth a look and memorable. Good music score helps too.

Film has full frontal female nudity right at the start, rather than in a key love scene later, it feels like a commercial decision to do it this way.

I'll try, but this is a very unique film with an outstanding cast. It really needs to be seen. Let's just say that had Nick Roeg's The Man Who Fell To Earth worked this well back in 1976 it would be known today for content rather than David Bowie.

A&E is showing Epsilon under the title Alien Visitor late at night with a few little censorship blurs to hide Ullie Birve's brief nudity, but if they put it up in prime time unmasked for all the world to see I'll bet they wouldn't get one nasty letter.

The plot is similar to TMWFTE or Starman or a dozen episodes of a dozen sci-fi TV shows. A woman from the star (or perhaps planet - we never really know) Epsilon drops in on a lad hiking out in the Australian outback unexpectedly and they fall for each other, but that's where comparisons to most alien visitor plots fade away.

The visitor (Birve) is not happy to be stuck on Earth, a planet reviled throughout the universe for its inhabitants' inability to see their inevitable self-destruction. The Earthling (Syd Brisbane) is just an easygoing guy living a simple life and doesn't really register the reason for her distain. Especially after she illustrates her point by jumping him around on his own planet in the wink of an eye and without even the celestial special effect of a Star Trek transporter.

Director Rolf de Heer uses fixed camera positions to record time passing rapidly mixed with gentle cuts into long fluid pans that effortlessly move the viewer with the main characters as they explore the Earth. It is a wondrous device, only possible in a movie, and we immediately share the Earthling's sense of amazement at the visitor's power over nature's physical laws but also learn with him that magic is the least important aspect of their encounter.

The underlying ecological discourse between the two hasn't lost one bit of relevancy since the film was made in 1995. If anything, the message has become more urgent in the 21st century.

Humans are killing the Earth and something must be done about it - by humans.

Epsilon is beautifully edited and shot by Tania Nehme and Tony Clark. Director Rolf de Heer also played with sci-fi in Encounter at Raven's Gate (1988).

Personally, I'm buying the DVD!

This film had the potential to be a truly great flick .. but was let down badly by its 'sledgehammer' approach to environmental issues, and the appallingly bad acting in the closing scene.

As an armchair greenie, I was pleased to see a film that brought the issues of sustainable resource development to the forefront .. but the continuous hammering on a single issue became annoying.

There are, however, some excellent moments in the movie.

The concept of "You breathe the foul air" as a dismissive insult is particularly evocative, and the ever-changing scenery does far more to draw attention to Ullie Birve's 'alien-ness' as She than all of Hollywood's FX could ever do.

Unlike most science-fiction of the 90s, this was not a chance to show off technological whizz-bangery .. and Rolf de Heer has, with just a few camera angle & location changes, done a masterful job of showing us changed perceptions.

Syd Brisbane, another de Heer favourite, plays the role of The Man with just the right combination of wide-eyed wonderment and plodding suburban pig-headedness .. but there needed to be more made of his Saul-like conversion if his later, unseen role was to be believed.

Which brings us to the final scene.

Althea McGrath's narration was quietly brilliant throughout the film, and her on-camera acting in the final scene was OK, if not outstanding. But oh, her grandchildren ...

Chloe and Phoebe Ferguson got quite good reviews for their roles in another de Heer film, "The Quiet Room" .. but unfortunately in Epsilon, their minor (but crucial) roles as "Child" and "Child" in the campfire sequence don't work.

In fact, the closing scene makes the entire movie like the fire itself: it casts light, it crackles and flares .. but eventually the wooden performances in the dying embers of the film leave nothing but ashes .. and the mood that de Heer has tried to conjure up blows away like so much smoke.

Which is a pity because, as I began, this movie could have been so much more.

This a movie which needs the story to carry itself: the scenery is nice but there is nothing much else to be seen. The story touches on a number of important social subjects such as protecting the environment and tolerance between cultures as well as SF subjects such as time-travel and alien visitors. Unfortunately it does not deliver on any of these subjects. It points out problems but never hints at any solution. And how do the aliens solve these problems? Well, they have a superior intellect and solve everything through their mind: time and space travel, energy production and everything else you can think of. I do not expect the makers to have all the answers, but just summoning up things which are wrong does not validate this movie.

The beginning was promising, but I ended up being disappointed in the end