Review- The Man Who Fell To Earth

Review of The Man Who Fell To Earth, on the release of its 30th Anniversary DVD, April, 2007:

In the world of cinema, there is a thought that goes ‘the best films always stand the test of time.’ Films that pushed the barriers back in the 1950s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s and now the ‘90s have messages that will forever be appreciated, irrelevant of technology and style.

In 2050 the fresh-faced film buff, complete with silver jump suit and robotic limbs, will still appreciate Audrey Hepburn’s class in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and be in awe of the imagery in Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange. The sight of a 30ft great white shark bearing down on a small fishing trawler will be forever etched in our fears thanks to Jaws, and the cinema goer of the future will still be paying hard earned pennies to purchase John Travolta and Uma Thurmin swinging to ‘Never Can Tell’ by Chuck Berry when Pulp Fiction claims its 30th anniversary in 2024.

Sometimes those pictures that define an era in movie-making are not appreciated until society has been given a time to digest them. ‘Red’ and his friends at Shawshank Penitentiary were not embraced by the cinema going public in 1995, but now The Shawshank Redemption must be the most cited film in history to be claimed as a person’s favourite.

In 2007, The Man Who Fell To Earth aims to join the illustrious, but overcrowded, band of films that have received a DVD makeover to launch its 30th Anniversary Edition. Of course there will be special features, a director’s commentary and so on. But does TMWFE (a clever shortening for the film’s title) qualify to be revered thirty years after its conception?

The short answer is no. It does not matter however many years the film has matured for, because visiting alien David Bowie’s acting will forever leave much to be desired, the laboured script will forever appear false and wooden, and the film will forever leave its viewers checking their watches after two-and-a-bit hours and wondering what time they should begin prepared their dinner.
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Back in 1976, the production crew tried to cover their tracks with philosophical comments. Nicolaus Roeg quoted Voltaire when he said: “I am not interested in the triumph of the immediate.” With this film, there doesn’t seem to be a triumph at all. Sales were never good back in the days of flares and space-hoppers, and if there is a valid message in the confused narrative then it is buried in a melee of poor acting and attempts at groundbreaking cinematography.

The film tells a story of how an alien has travelled to Earth to gather water for his dying planet. The narrative is set in a way that large lapses of time are hardly noticed. This seems to be an effort to show how time may be a different creature from the eyes of an alien, but in reality just prevents the viewers from really joining the characters on their journey, and therefore any emotion in the film becomes stale and weary.

Bowie’s demise in the climax of the film is somewhat slow, and his journey never really touches on reality or resonate with the audience. Of course the story is fantastical, but for this film to work it needed to touch the viewer, something which it failed to do.

Still, the fat cats at British Lion Film Corporation will surely reap a pretty penny from cashing in on the anniversary DVD debacle. Quite how anyone thinks this is in the realm of some Eastwood, Monroe, DeNiro and Pacino classics is beyond me.