HEAVY METAL

US, 1981, 90 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Gerald Potterton.

Heavy Metal is an adult animated film from the 80s. It was based on a range of American comic books - with the touch of the X-rated stories and sexual treatment. It was popular at the time. However, it might be now seen as a pioneer in this kind of film, taken to some violent and sexual extremes in Japanese animation as well as some American.

The film is bold and striking and boasts a number of comic voices including Richard Romanus, John Candy and director Harold Ramis.

1. The popularity of the comic strip? The books? Comic strips and their effect? Style? Their boldness: drawing, delineation of characters, situations. action? Fantasy? Cult comics? Their pop-symbolism? Reality and unreality?

2. The comic strip style of the film? Varieties of animation? The moving image comic strip style: shapes, changing shapes, characters, human and inhuman/ extra-terrestrial, animals? Colours, lines? Boldness and violence? Reality and unreality?

3. The importance of the music: the range of styles, the range of performers and groups? Their popularity? Combining them with the images? Mutual interaction? Rock music, the sound of the music, lyrics and their vigour, social comment, protest? Violence and rebellion?

4. The purpose of the film - entertainment, social comment? The title and its reference to the comic books?

5. The focus on Grimaldi: the astronaut and the background of space exploration films of the '70s and '80s, his daughter, the mansion? The symbol of the Lochnar and its effects? The focus on the Lochnar and the little girl? The framing device for the whole film - her initial innocence, her being transformed into the saviour-figure?

6. Harry Canyon, Manhattan, its evil, the atmosphere of New York, the woman, the seduction, Rudnick?

7. Dan the ordinary young man and his transformation into Den? travels, struggles? The emphasis on the macho image of the male? Sexism? Heroes and heroines, struggles?

8. Captain Sternn and his violence, killings? Hanover Bist and the transformation into the beast, violence and havoc? The ordinary man and his bestial transformation? The comment about human condition? Captain Sternn's manipulating of this and escape?

9. The B 17 and its war, its being struck, disaster, the corpse's revivifying, the hero parachuting, the graveyard and destruction? Comment on war and killing?

10. The satire on the Pentagon and American policy? Gloria as the attractive secretary? Doctor Anrak and his behaviour? The Pentagon? The mysterious spacecraft? Sexual encounters? The robot - and the comment on sexual behaviour and attitudes?

11. Taana, the barbarians, the siege? Taana riding on the bird? The ball and the destruction of the mountain?

12. The effect of the Lochnar telling the story, the little girl listening? Her transformation into the new champion?

13. The effect of such immersion in a range of stories, fantasies, comics, visual impact, sounds and music?