In the 17 years since its auspicious start, plenty has happened to Spacehog—some of it not so great. And still, the group’s new release, As It Is On Earth (Hog Space), carries on almost as if there were no gaping 12 years of dead air since the 2001 release of the band’s last album, The Hogyssey. As It Is On Earth displays none of the derivative Bowie/T.Rex laziness of its predecessor, while harnessing manageable doses of the antsy experimental energy that fueled Resident Alien’s expansive 1998 follow-up, The Chinese Album. Spacehog frontman Royston Langdon will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new feature on the band.
Royston Langdon: Leos Carax, the director and creator of Holy Motors has become a great inspiration to me of late in how to approach one’s work fearlessly. How it was possible to even get this film made is nothing short of a miracle. In an age where Hollywood and others seem to be making films in some sort of financially based pyramid scheme where the lowest common denominator rules. To me, the movie looks at the very process of making a movie or any creative process in our age. The cameras are getting so small we don’t have to see them to know they are watching and preserving. And who are we watching and for what reason? To what end? Have we all become criminals waiting and watching CCTV for another inevitable crime?
Denis Lavant plays an actor, Oscar; perhaps this moniker choice is no coincidence? We see him brilliantly perform in nine scenarios, some more surreal than others. All are masterful in their delivery whilst being unique unto themselves. In the film, this character struggles with his own difficulty in his commitment to his work. An exhausting and seemingly never-ending look at who we are and are not. One of the great moments is when he meets another such actor played by Kylie Minogue. Both appear to know one another from time gone by. They share the same wanton expression, warn down by work and life and loss. Holy Motors is a very unpredictable film, and as Kylie subtly begins a song, “Who Were We?” the film takes yet another unexpected twist into a sort of musical foray.
All in all, it leaves one feeling a sense of precariousness in one’s own identity and that is not comfortable or Hollywood. I really can’t recommend this film enough. Go see it.
Video after the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5Cww89TbkE
