A self-proclaimed “Fantastic Film Freakout Featuring The Flaming Lips.” The Flaming Lips, for those who don’t know, are an Oklahoma based psychedelic rock band who’ve been around since 1983, and this 2008 film, written and partially directed by the band’s founder/lead singer Wayne Coyne, was a seven-year labor of love. The initial release took the form of a travelling concert, complete with a circus tent and souped-up sound system, prior to the film assuming its most common form: as a DVD you’re likely to find categorized, wrongly, as a musical.
The setting is ostensibly the surface of Mars, although what we actually see is a cheaply wrought space colony set in Coyne’s back yard (as with many a cult film, CHRISTMAS ON MARS flaunts its artificiality). There several demoralized cosmonauts are stranded, led by Flaming Lips band member Steven Drozd as Major Syrtis. He’s stressed out about a busted oxygen generator and the imminent birth of a “Christmas Baby,” set to be delivered by a virginal crewmember named Solis (J. Michelle Martin-Coyne—or, as she’s credited on a DVD supplement, “Wife”). Syrtis finds himself seeing newly born infants (more often than not getting eaten or stomped on) everywhere he looks.
Coyne plays an “Alien Super-Being” (we known he’s an alien because of two dopey-looking antennae jutting out of his forehead) with little to say who turns up in the colony. His functions come to include fixing the oxygen generator and playing Santa Claus in a Christmas pageant being held by the colonists (the previous cast member having died).
Perhaps the best summation of this film comes from Wayne Coyne himself, who dubbed it “an elaborate, arty, home movie starring the band with our friends and family. In time, the film crew and the Flaming Lips’ road crew had cameos and, luckily, some real actors volunteered their love and labor as well.” The latter include Fred Armison and Adam Goldberg (Elijah Wood and Isaac Brock are also reputed to have filmed cameos that didn’t make the final cut), in addition to fellow Lips bandmembers Michael Ivins and Kliph Scurlock.
Beyond that the film contains lots of miscellaneous phallic and vaginal imagery, psychedelia that wouldn’t look out of place in a trance video, and cinematography that alternates high contrast black and white with highly garish color. There are isolated moments of oft-kilter brilliance, but moments are all we get, as the film consists mostly of rambling dialogue (as in an interminable bit in which Syrtis becomes fixated on the difference between “nobilism” and “nobility”) from performers who for the most part aren’t known for their acting prowess. Also, for some reason the credits are presented in Russian and English, and Russian subtitles offered on the DVD release (perhaps because the film’s initial venues included a Ukrainian Socialist club?).
In the category of cult films made to showcase rock bands, CHRISTMAS ON MARS ranks below average. Unlike most of the others (which include FORBIDDEN ZONE and TRUE STORIES) its band’s songs don’t bombard the soundtrack (as the Flaming Lips composed music is entirely ambient in nature), and so the film doesn’t feel like an extended music video. It probably would have played better if it had.
Vital Statistics
CHRISTMAS ON MARS
Head Trips/Lovely Sorts of Death/Warner Bros. Records
Directors: Wayne Coyne, Bradley Beesley, George Salisbury
Producers: The Flaming Lips, Scott Booker, Warner Bros. Records
Screenplay: Wayne Coyne
Cinematography: Bradley Beesley
Editing: George Salisbury
Cast: Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd, Michael Ivins, Kliph Scurlock, J. Michelle Martin-Coyne, Fred Armisen, Adam Goldberg, Steve Burns, Mark DeGraffenried, Dennis Coyne, Kenny Coyne, Jimmy Pike, Al Cory, Mikey Thompson, Scott Booker, Justin Duda, Daniel Huffman, Josh Higgins, Leonard Sols, Peter Hermes