Um….I’m scared. It’s like somebody has wrung out my brain and put the drippings down on film. Like this movie, my brain is filled with guys wearing boxes on their heads, talking jibber jabber about “regulators”, “controllers”, “globules” and “surfacers”. But just because I have to put up with this kinda stuff in my head on a regular basis, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I like it.
This stark, black and white art film adventure takes place on a distant planet inhabited by a repressed society of human like beings who are forced to wear white masks on their faces and bow down to the Controller, a Wizard of Oz type doofus, who has them all living together like a mindless Kool Aid drinking cult. The Controller employs Regulators who work in his factory (doing what I haven’t the foggiest) as well as help him keep the peace. The lower class workers wear boxes on their heads – box heads. But there’s a hippie couple who decide that they’ve had enough of this bullshit and plot a revolution. This revolution consists of stealing a gold record, that the controller keeps hidden from everyone else, and playing it on the public airwaves. Why this gold record, you ask? Cuz it’s got Chuck Berry’s “Johnny Be Good” that’s why, you silly bird! And when everyone here’s the power of this tune, they’ll shed their masks and live as free people…probably enjoy peeing on each other too.
So there’s the film in a nutshell, or at least I think it is. If I had a tank of nitrous sitting next to me the while time, I more than likely would’ve gotten into it more. But watching this stone sober, I couldn’t get past its pretentiously weird quality. At times, this is quite a beautiful looking film, in fact it seems to take a cue from “Eraserhead” with all of its grainy black and white footage mostly shot in and around a dark factory. But at other times, you’ll be left shaking your head as you have to put up with overly bizarre dialogue, dance numbers, a barely comprehendible story and just plain silliness. But then again, this is an ART film. What more do you want?
