The Flaming Lips — Christmas On Mars

Christmas On Mars

Warner

Dan "The Mouth" Lovranski (CHARTattack)

12/12/2008 4:53pm

Sometimes when artists from other disciplines make films based more on image than storytelling, it can really backfire. The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour film was a good example of this.

No need to worry here, though, as Wayne Coyne and his fellow Lips have made exactly the type of film you'd expect. Christmas On Mars is trippy, abstract, thought-provoking, colourful, bleak, expressionistic and, of course, spacey. Their fans are going to love it, but anyone else may find it hard-going.

Christmas On Mars deals with a number of basic human emotions like happiness, sadness, isolation, depression, hope, faith and determination. The thin narrative focuses around a group of men working on a space station on Mars who are severely emotionally taxed, and some (like drummer Kliph Scurlock's character) are even physically trapped in place by fear. After one of the crew members who was to play Santa Claus tragically commits suicide, the men are visited by an alien (played by Coyne) who offers up some light amidst the darkness.

The film's experimental nature hurts it in spots, and several of the ideas Coyne appears to be promoting (judging from the liner notes and the interview with him in the extras) don't always come across strong enough. Still, for the contingent of the Lips' fan base that just wants to be freaked out, this film is right up their alley.

While the film may be rough-going in spots, the soundtrack is classic Lips, with added cinematic soundscapes, since there wasn't any need to really turn anything into an actual song.

In fact, the film's real triumph is its marrying of the music to the imagery. It always seems to fit, even if what the image and sound together are trying to say remains cloudy. If anything comes from this, more mainstream filmmakers may use the Lips for their future soundtrack needs.

And even though it's the cliche in this situation, smoking a hearty joint before viewing is pretty much essential.