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monkfishlee
Reviews
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)
Loving the Alien
I remember watching it in the late Nineties, when I was 20 or so. I never really got the film back then, feeling that the film made sense up to a point about two thirds of the way through and then seems to lose focus and narrative structure.
Having watched it again recently I still feel the same, only now I realise why the film gets so confusing. I won't go to far into it, only to say that there is a jump forward in time towards the end of the film but the world still looks like the mid Seventies. So this passage of time passed me by the first time I watched.
Anyway, I digress. The Man Who Fell to Earth features a great turn by David Bowie, who was beginning his coke fueled Thin White Duke period. This really plays into his performance and it's hard to tell where Bowie ends and Thomas Jerome Newton begins.
In fact I rate all of the performances in the film highly. I also like the how the film looks. The opening 20 minutes of the film are very atmospheric and really portray how isolated Bowie's alien is.
Overall I would recommend the film, with the caveat that this is really science fiction that is particular to the time, as in just before Star Wars came out. It is slow, weird and confusing, and all the better for it