LIQUID SKY

US, 1982, 118 minutes, Colour.
Anne Carlisle, Paula E. Shepherd.
Directed by Slava Tsukerman.

Liquid Sky is a cinematic oddity that was taken up by several international film festivals and became something of a cult entertainment.

The title is the slang for heroin. The film is set in a New York subculture, a kind of semi-sleazy underworld familiar from many New York crime and police stories. However, the world is that of a Russian expatriate, director Slava Tsukerman. The cast enters into the spirit of the film, especially lead Anne Carlisle who takes the part of both Margaret and Jimmy.

The film is also something of a spoof of Close Encounter, Alien films. Margaret, a Midwestern girl but now a 'new wave' model, finds that a flying saucer with a psychedelic eye lands on her apartment. There is some satire at the expense of scientists, especially with a German astro-physicist who comes to New York and investigates this. There is also some romantic and sexual involvement with Owen, a drama teacher. The tongue-in-cheek hypothesis is that the alien craft is attracted to saucers of heroin. As if coming from an Andy Warhol film, a number of characters materialise, especially in the sexy Miss Sylvia. Miss Sylvia is the mother of Jimmy, who is Margaret's double. There is some sex and violence scenes, especially when Paul attacks Margaret but is killed by the alien. The rest of the plot involves modelling teams and sessions, sex displays, Adrian, a satanic singer, and the havoc wrought by the alien.

Margaret, however, gets caught up with the alien which seems to possess her. She wreaks a violent revenge on Vincent, the son of a Hollywood executive who had raped her. Finally she disappears with the departing saucer.

The film is the kind of tongue-in-cheek experimental curiosity beloved of subculture groups which draw on tradition but want to react against it.