Liquid Sky (Slava Tsukerman, 1982)
[/column] [column grid=”2″ span=”1″]For this last meeting, you can’t see the cyberpunk, you can only perceive it. There aren’t neither any robots, nor post- apocalyptic civilizations, nor man-machine fusion. Not only the story, but also the dialogs seem needless. Just still images can’t be explicative, but it would be sufficient observing the trailer for catching the Liquid Sky, just for a moment. It’s sufficient to loose in the camera and, thanks to several trolleys going on and going back, it swings compulsively in a fluid and astonishing trip that constantly changes.
[/column] [column grid=”2″ span=”1″]Sin dall’inizio scorre una serie di snapshot che ci permette di coglierne l’estetica attraverso elementi chiave: neon fluorescenti che illuminano ambienti claustrofobici, dischi volanti che atterrano su manhattan e una disco stracolma di freaks che ballano confusamente tra fumi, cocktail e spolverate di cocaina. A far da sottofondo non ci sono suoni, ma rumori stridenti, strimpelli elettronici provenienti da un rarissimo sintetizzatore dell’epoca. La visione della realtà non è oggettiva, ma si alternano due filtri: accanto al punto di vista umano dimesso e decadente traspare difatti un punto di vista alieno, saturo e ipercolorato, come a volerci proiettare all’interno di un videogame.
[/column] [column grid=”2″ span=”1″]. Since the staring, there is a flowing of snapshots that let us catch the aesthetic aspect though several key elements: fluorescent lights that light up claustrophobic settings where flying saucers touch down Manhattan and a disco full of freaks who dance confusedly in the smokesamong cocktails and cocaine. In the background there aren’t any sounds, but some strong noise, electronic strums coming from a rarest aged synthesize. Reality point of view is not objective, but there is an alternation of two filters: close to the resigned and decadent human view, there is the alien one that shines though and that is filled and super colored, as if it wanted to make you feel in a video game.
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[/column] [column grid=”2″ span=”1″]The main actors are liquid and fickle, because they are decorated with frills, baroque and changing turnarounds of makeup – decorations that are studied for a fashion show – but, they become neutral and minimal when they decorate their heroin feast in claustrophobic and weak rooms. Anna Carlisle that is the principal actress, and the script co-writer, could be the perfect liquid sky identification, everything is changeable in an only human being, woman and man – the lesbian Margaret and the gay Jimmy – decay and perfection, alien movements but with human semblances, almost as the complete orchestra was directed, once a time, by the demon of opposites.
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[column grid=”2″ span=”1″]E proprio Margaret viene scelta e monitorata dagli alieni, i quali, attraverso il suo corpo, uccidono chiunque abbia con lei un rapporto sessuale, ricavando dal cervello dei tossicodipendenti un’enzima capace di mantenerli in vita. Le vittime, incluso il già citato alter-ego di Margaret, Jimmy, raggiunto l’orgasmo, scompaiono con un cristallo conficcato in fronte. Persino la protagonista femminile, annoiata e depressa, si inietterà dell’eroina e morirà in un atto estremo di auto-erotismo.
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[column grid=”2″ span=”1″]It’s Margeret the one is chosen and monitored by aliens.They kill all the people who have a sexual relationship with her though her body, taking by the junkies’ brain an enzyme that is able to keep them alive. Victims, also Margaret alter-ego, Jimmy, have the orgasm and then they fade away in a crystal that is hammered on their face. Also the female main actress, bored and depressed, will take some heroin and she will die in an extreme act of self-eroticism.
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[/column] [column grid=”2″ span=”1″]A story that recalls the hallucinated “Naked Lunch” images by Cronemberg, but this one could masterly represent the real act, that is more important, rawer and slimier, where human beings suck living lymph, sperm, by the alien skulls protuberances that are hanged on the ceiling.
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[/column] [column grid=”2″ span=”1″]The common line between the two stories, that are different and far, is the relationship between alien and man (that is alienated), and the effect of drugs. Here, drugs are able to launch us in a stratiform spiral of cyber, that is punk, but also baroque, glam and wave.
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