LIQUID SKY is Fucking Weird… Like Really Fucking Weird
It’s taken me over a month to write about this bizarre film and I am sorry for that, my loyal readers. On paper, it seems like something I should not only appreciate, but love. I like a lot weird cinema. I love sci-fi on the whole. The glam scene is endlessly fascinating to me. But, somehow… I just can’t get down with this one.
Yet, I’m still drawn to it. I’ve rewatched certain scenes over and over. I’ve listened to the soundtrack in the background while working and writing – keep in mind, I don’t consider it a good soundtrack, rather an interestingly bad one. It is not a film I appreciate for entertainment at this point and it may never be. Yet, I keep thinking about it and I keep wondering how I can simultaneously find it uninteresting and interesting. It’s truly an enigma of a film for me, thus I I an almost sure I’ll revisit it for years to come.
With that, I’ll present to you a summary based on my initial viewing notes and my further thoughts from this month of time where I continually struggled with how to discuss this film…
At first, its overtly amateur decisions and filmmaking led me to believe that I’d find this film to be relatively endearing. Soon thereafter, I lost that feeling and it was replaced with boredom, as the film really failed to do much more than bore me. Eventually, I found myself confused by the plethora of plot holes and unusual plot devices. By the end, I was back to that bored feeling, just praying for it to be over.
This describes a pretty poor viewing experience. And, I will not sugar coat it… it, indeed, was a poor experience. However, not even a day later, I found myself engrossed in the film’s history, the intriguing reviews and thoughts from other writers that I found, and eventually digging into the wonderful features that Vinegar Syndrome packed onto the Blu-ray. I couldn’t stop obsessing over a film that I had a pretty awful experience watching. What this means, I’m not sure; but, I am sure that there is good reason to be intrigued by this crazy film.
I was particularly struck by the thoughts of Cinepunx’s Nick Spacek…
…it’s not so much as people Margaret has sex with, so much as it is people who rape Margaret. It’s not explicit or shot titillatingly, thankfully, but Tsukerman crafted a story which demonstrates the absolute brutality of the fashion world and the the generally abusive treatment of women, in general.
Nick’s take got me thinking that maybe I was drawn to the film because of something it was trying to say – or, even, inadvertently saying. Maybe it was more about the drug abuse in the film, which could have felt important and appropriate for looking at the 2018 opioid epidemic. Maybe, it was simply inexplicable.
I still don’t get my relationship to this film, nor do I get the film itself. However, I do know a few things:
- No matter what I do, I can’t shake my interest in this one… I just can’t.
- Vinegar Syndrome got a great scan and the film looks better than anyone could expect for such a film.
- The features on this disc are basically perfect: the documentary, the interviews, all of it. Vinegar Syndrome really knows how to put together great packages for their releases.
I’ll probably never like this film… but I doubt I’ll ever be able to get it completely out of my life, either. Welcome to my subconscious, Liquid Sky. You’ll be riding with me. Welcome for a long time, a very long time.
Aw, man, I couldn’t find this movie so I could counter-review it. It’s been too many years since I last saw it to do it justice. But to sum it up, you are so WRONG! Considering the 1980s were full of godawful movies – even the mainstream ones were terrible – this movie was a piece of underground art!
It is definitely underground art… but some art is… uh… not great.