Bowie Fell to Earth Last night Bill and I watched The Man Who Fell to Earth. Very good, but depressing! Somehow it's almost worse when depressing films are well executed - I couldn't even just fall asleep as I normally do during movies. From comments I've read about the film, a lot of people seem to take away an anti-business message, but (naturally) I was more struck by the anti-state bits - particularly the pitiful university prof being brought back to life by contact with this large company, but then selling it out to the state in the end. The G-men themselves were totally creepy - with the bragging about not being any sort of 'mere' mafia. I guess the state is the uber-mafia! But of course the strongest sense of sorrow came from the alien's desire to return home and his inability to do so. You thought - along with him - that if he worked just a little bit harder, he could get what he wanted so badly. But then you (and he) wondered if he really was willing to do that, especially with all the resistance he met. But then of course sympathy for him was tempered by the reflection that he must have started his journey here by murdering the woman who he tried to sell his ring to :-/

Bill and I sat around after the movie hating the state and all people who want to push other people around, and the miserable dragging weight such people inflict on the world's stock of creativity and energy.

The best comment from Amazon's review page is probably this:

It is a film about failure and disappointment .

You will see an unforgettable film in a great package .
However , be prepared to be depressed - watch it when you're in a good mood , as you can only go south from there.

One quibble - it might be better to watch when already depressed, because why spoil a perfectly good mood by getting bummed out by the seeming inevitability of death and grief into he world? Why now wait for a moment when you're ready to wallow in the world's sorrows? Like the Blues, something like this can trip you 'down so low that that it looks like up' (to paraphrase someone).  ¶ 7:15 PM