Liquid Sky

Liquid Sky!!

Wow, tough to say a simple few words about this movie. Liquid Sky is a rare film as it documents a time period in the USA when "post-punk" and "New Wave" were truly still underground. Liquid Sky is so easily compartmentalized into gay/lesbian cinema or a "cult classic" when it truly stands alone as a document of an era criminally under represented.

Roger Ebert who in my opinion really understands good cinema, gave this movie strong local press support in Chicago when it played at the Three Penny art Theatre in Chicago. The 3 Penny was across the street from the original Wax Trax record store on Lincoln Avenue which was another "power spot' of this post-punk/early new wave underground in Chicago. Ebert gave this movie a thumbs up and I think 3.5 stars upon the initial release. Ebert understands "dark" cinema which I think few see.

There are few movies in all of cinema that leave you with a "feeling" that Liquid Sky does at the end. By taking you correctly, intelligently into a world (Underground Clubs, Drug Scenes) that do exist, that few see. Donnie Darko is to me "in the ballpark" of the way Liquid Sky makes you feel at film's end.

The musical score (using the then very rare and expensive) Synclavier sampling keyboard was way ahead of it's time by perhaps 20 years. That along with the strong performances, is what makes Liquid Sky not just "weird' or "freak cinema" but something actually special.

If you were part of the New Wave or Post-Punk "underground" of 1981-1983 you will nod your head to what I am about to say: Liquid Sky is just about the ONLY movie that captures the "feel" of this period.

The rare Anne Carlisle! She-popped in with this magical tour-de-force performance and then basically disappeared from cinema. The only other easily obtainable performance of Carlisle is in the Miami Vice episode "Yankee Dollar" where she appears in the last 10 minutes of the episode as the wealthy heiress trying to save her husbands company via an illegal deal.

The DVD review! Wow!! The fact that some people really cared about this movie is seen in the DVD extras. The fact that just the movie made it to an official DVD is enough , but the extras where a huge shock. Actual beta video footage of test run thoughts of scenes. An initial opening 10 minute sequence that was edited to provide a different plot opening to the movie. TV spots, etc..

To use the word "cult classic" then every rare film like this should be treated to such extras on a DVD.

Not for "kids" , but I give Liquid sky a solid 10 out of 10 on the IMDb scale!

While some may see this movie as weird, the movie actually displays a real "truth" of what that scene was like 1981-1983 (minus the aliens of course). Watch Carlisle's monologue while putting on the make-up in the last 15 minutes of the film. You will not find a more "honest" speech about what happens when a girl moves from the country to depths of the inner city underground scene.

The time is the 80's. Everyone is either A. on cocaine, B. a rapist, or C. a model. Those who are class B and C. are also class A. Everyone is dressed like extras from "Flash Gordon" with more fish-net, and all the music comes out of a Casio. Two androgynous bi-sexual models named Adrian and Margaret compete in the New York fashion underground for who is cattiest bitch and the most stylish a$$. Both characters are played surprisingly well by the same actress, to heighten both the androgyny of "the scene" at the time, and the repetition. Margaret is the main character, described by her male incarnation Adrian as "...an uptight WASP c*#t from Connecticut.", bookending the film, but being largely absent from its mushy middle. Amidst the usual backstabbing, s*^t talking, runway stomping, and sexual assaults (virtually the only kind of intercourse the film displays) visitors from beyond the stars have also taken an interest in the sordid little events.

These aliens live in a tiny, largely invisible UFO, positioned on top of our heroines apartment where they can observe the events inside through a heavily pixilated color blur that resembles Chris Marker's invented film style "The Zone" from "Sans Soliel" or the heat vision the Rasta-lizard of "Predator" views the world through. This psychedelic point of view is repeated throughout the film, as the aliens are the most constant though silent narrators. Their interest in the Manhattan fashionista junky set comes from the same reason that so many are/were attracted to such places; the sex and the drugs. Human orgasm produces more chemical reactions in the brain than at any other time in life. The brain becomes the body's dealer, and the body explodes, shivers, and shrivels back to down to size, patiently awaiting or screaming for it's next fix. For tiny aliens the only drug in the universe better than our cum-chemical's, are these fluids when they come from the opiate riddled brain of a junky."The ancient Egyptians weren't afraid of euphoria", says a drug addled screen-writer in one of the films many inter-connected sub-plots.

Thus aliens begin turning up at the fringes of "punk sub-culture" where the junk-cum getting is good and no one cares if people go missing. "New Wave" models are the next evolutionary step forward (for one they have more money drugs). So the junkies wait around to score, and the aliens wait for the junkies to score with each other. Unfortunately there is no way for the aliens to extract these chemicals without killing those they take from, which to Margaret who is often being raped by whoever is spilling their seed, it's as if God himself has suddenly taken an interest in her life. Not enough of an interest to stop her from being raped, but enough to make the bodies of the bad men (and women) disappear after they have done their business. It doesn't take long before she realizes that sex with her leads to death. "Margaret: I kill with my c^*t.". This new sexual power gives her both confidence (to get revenge on those who abused her), and a renewed sense of alienation (what little sexual release and connection she did have is now impossible).

"Campy" is something of an understatement for describing "Liquid Sky", a film drenched head to day-glo toe in nihilist attitude, decadent fashion, disturbing sex, and surreal black humor. But also this campiness and seeming lack of "content" and seriousness make enough room for the moments of sincere cultural insight and emotional pathos to stand out in ways that would seem truly alien in a John Waters or Dusan Makavejev flick (two filmmakers "Liquid Sky" is indebted to).

The ending of the film once Adrian and Margaret's feud has come to a literal and figurative "head" (couldn't resist the pun…I'm a bad person) is also surprisingly and even unnecessarily sad and vulnerable than would be required of something this "tasteless". Imagine if at the end of "Rocky Horror Picture Show" Brad and Janet had a serious talk about their changing sexuality, or their stifling childhoods or something. And now imagine that scene being successful.

What would it be like to come to New York in the 80's from the suburbs? What would it be like to suddenly be surrounded by a never ending race for sensual pleasure and aesthetic perfection, where the tongues are either in your mouth or barbed, forked, and spitting venom at anything resembling "sentimental", or "soft"? What would it be like to thrive in this environment? Would it feel like being food for alien creatures, or would it feel it like feeding them. In a world built around the sexual image, would sex feel liberating, or just like another way to be used. "Liquid Sky" is an absurd pageant, but one not based completely in irony, it's cynicism is hard one from experience. Margaret's inevitable "falling in love" with the UFO, feels like a tragic romance, not a schlocky b-movie. The movie contains both styles in the end, and finds a parasitic way of letting one feed the other to make both aspects stronger. Who is top and who is bottom in this scenario is up to debate.

"Liquid Sky" is more of an "attitude" than a film, and I know how cheesy that sounds, but divorced from this attitude the performances fall flat. Devoid of the music the scenes would fall flat. Devoid of the humor the dialog would fall flat, and devoid of the dialog the film would fall flat. If any one part of this film were to be altered the rest would fall into chaos like a game of Jenga.

As it is they all balance each other out in "cult classic" bliss, which may indeed be more style than substance. Of course Adriane might say something like "substance is for ugly people who lack style", and who am I to argue.

I could watch this film again and again for the fabulous retro costumes alone. It is a low-budget sci-fi about aliens in a miniature flying saucers that home in on a chemical released in the brain during orgasm which is akin to heroin. There's very little aliens-action, but lots of psychedelic photography, a cunning rhythm that sucks you into the world of Warhol-like druggies, freelove-devotees, artists, fashion designers, experimental musicians, OTT models, and bisexuals. Liquid Sky is a gem (and also contains perhaps the most realistic lesbian sex scene I've ever seen!) S*d the make-up unless is at least as wild as Ziggy Stardust, leave your gender attitude at the door, embrace existence as rocket-fuelled experience, and tune in to Liquid Sky.

In New York, a small flying saucer lands on the roof of a penthouse seeking for heroin. In the apartment, the cocaine addicted model Margaret (Anne Carlisle) is a promiscuous bisexual androgynous woman that lives with her lover, the drug dealer Adrian (Paula E. Sheppard). Margaret has sex with many partners asking for cocaine in return.

The aliens discover that the sensation of the orgasm is equivalent to the heroin and they suck the brains of Margaret's lovers, killing them first and then making their bodies disappear. Meanwhile, a German scientist is chasing the extraterrestrial beings and arrives in a building in front of Margaret's apartment to observe the creatures.

"Liquid Sky" is one of the weirdest films that I have ever seen. When I saw this low-budget cult-movie for the first time in the 80's, I remember that I liked it a lot. However, now I have just watched it on DVD I have found the plot dated and the image needs to be restored. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Liquid Sky"

"Liquid Sky" (1982 - 114 minutes), film written, produced and directed by the Russian director Slava Tsukerman, can be considered a classic underground cinema full of fantastic realism. Liquid Sky means "heroin" in the New York slang of that time. This is a scientific fiction movie whose scene is the world of the fashion and the heavy drugs in Manhattan.

The plot seems comic but the result is surprising: a flying saucer lands on the penthouse's roof of a famous model called Margareth [the actress Anne Carlisle, who also interprets the androgynous model Jimmy]. A very small alien creature hidden in a spaceship of the size and format of a little signature TV antenna, captures the energies of the place, earning force through a substance produced in the human brain at the moment of orgasm. So, the extraterrestrial exterminates one by one, the partners of the model. These events are followed by a German astrophysicist that also researches Ufology. The film presents a savage sense of humor and an elaborated visual technique through blown up colors, fluorescent makeup, melting forms, many neon and ultraviolet lights.