Liquid Sky

Liquid Sky

1982

Director- Slava Tsukerman

Cast- Anne Carlisle, Paula E. Sheppard, Susan Doukas, Otto von Wernherr, Bob Brady, Elaine C. Grove, Stanley Knap, Jack Adalist

            

     Set in the New Wave scene of early 80s New York, Margaret is a drug addicted fashion model (Anne Carlisle in her most famous role). She is sexually ambivalent and emotionally unattached to anyone except her uncaring girlfriend (Paula E. Shepard). Her arch rival in the local modeling scene is the androgynous (and also drug addicted) Jimmy (also played by Carlisle).

 Margaret, because of her drug use and associations, finds herself in some pretty dangerous sexual situations including getting raped in front of her own apartment. Jimmy meanwhile is the ultimate user, manipulating people to further his addiction.

Amidst all of this, tiny aliens (their space ship is no bigger than a dinner plate) have come to prey on the junkies in the club scene. The aliens live off of the chemicals that the human brain produces during extreme pleasure, like say during an orgasm or after a shot of heroin. The aliens take up residence on the roof of Margaret’s apartment building. Margaret carries on a loveless sexual relationship with her old college acting professor and as he is orgasming the aliens kill him, sucking out his brain chemicals in an instant. The only evidence they leave behind is a crystal shard sticking out of his head.

Margaret doesn’t know what has happened or why but the last thing that someone in active addiction (who doesn’t think too highly of people anyway) is going to do is call the cops, so she decides to hide the body. Later, another one of her high risk encounters has yet another guy rape her, except this time the rape ends with him dying as he climaxes, with the tell-tale crystal sticking out of his head. Margaret puts two and two together and comes to the wrong conclusion. Knowing nothing about the aliens, she concludes that she is somehow killing people by having sex with them. Margaret is immune to the aliens as she never reaches orgasm (either from her drug addiction or depression I’m not sure). She decides to turn the tables on some folks, using sex as a weapon to get rid of some people.

This movie’s subject matter was very ahead of its time. It gets pretty detailed (for a movie) talking about opiate receptors in the brain and how heroin and sex work the same way on the brain. When this film was made, there was not a widespread understanding of the neuropharmacology of addiction (even today most medical doctors who don’t work in the field have only a vague understanding of addiction). Most Hollywood portrayals of addiction were either the comical town drunk or the tragic dope fiend and those films certainly wouldn’t have taken the time to explain neurological processes.

Also, either the writer or somebody closely involved in the making of this film had an intimate understanding of addiction. Not because the depictions of drug use are so accurate (we see very little of the actual drug use in the film) but the addict behavior is spot on. Margaret is apathetic to the point of self-destruction. Ambivalence seems to be her coping skill for life. She gets treated like crap, used and abused, but she goes on about her way, glamorous image intact, with the detachment of someone who has accepted that it won’t stop raining anytime soon. Jimmy, meanwhile, is not above any manipulation, threats or charm, to get what he wants, such as a scene where he as lunch with his mother. They have a pleasant conversation all the way through until at the end when he quickly slides in a request for money.

But none of that is what the movie is known for. It’s known for its look.  The images of the film are so iconic and the film was so influential on a particular subculture that it’s hard (looking back almost 40 years later) to figure out how much of the film was displaying New Wave /post punk culture and how much it was creating said culture. Margaret and Jimmy’s pale, androgynous look prefigured the “heroin chic” look of 1990s.

As it takes place in the world of fashion, there are plenty of eye catching visuals. But the beautiful faces and bright colors, rather than cheering you up, just serve as a counterpoint to highlight the grim nature of the film, And grim it is. The fatalistic nature of addiction aside, the film offers a pretty pessimistic view of humanity. Everyone is out for themselves. Everyone is mean to everyone else. Margaret is the most likable person in the film mainly because her abuse is turned inward instead of outward.  The musical score, rather than the synth pop you’d expect, is industrial marches bordering on atonal and cacophonous. I have to assume that the grim nature of the film was informed by the maker’s backgrounds. The director Slava Tsukerman and cinematographer Yuri Neyman had both emigrated from the USSR prior to making this film. Something about Eastern Europe made it the perfect fit for the New Wave scene (case in point, Berlin of the 1980s).

The film looks low budget (which it was) but it doesn’t look cheap. Though there are no big name actors or impressive special effects, every bit of the film looks like it was made by consummate professionals who had a very specific final product in mind. If the last time you saw this film was after renting it from a video store, there is a new digitally restored version available on Blu-ray. If you haven’t seen it, and are open to the avant-garde, then you might enjoy this intersection of art, science fiction, and social commentary.