FAR-OUT FLASHBACK

SPACE STATION 76 (2014: Dir. Jack Plotnick)

For fans of my generation it is the Science Fiction send-up we never imagined. A laugh-out-loud love letter to the groovy dystopian space fantasies populated by swinging stereotypes in all their bell-bottomed glory. If you grew up, as I did, devouring everything Sci-Fi in the Seventies, then filmmaker Jack Plotnick 's Space Station 76 is the ultimate nostalgia trip back to the future. By cunningly stealing external elements from such treasured television trash as The Starlost, Buck Rogers, and Space:1999, and emotionally combining them with the narcissistic angst of a John Cheever story, Plotnick and his collaborators have created one of the most amusing recent critiques of the so-called "Me Decade". The film is an evocative compendium of the social and sexual self-involvement of the Seventies, embodied by the isolated inhabitants of the film's eponymous space station. As the lives of these egocentric avatars were being played out in front of me, I couldn't help experiencing cringes of recognition in between prolonged bouts of ribald laughter. Plotnick not only knows that hair, make-up and clothes are the easiest of visual gags when summoning up such a colour-blind fashion epoch, but he also cleverly underlines the emptiness of his character's lives by recreating the cloying consumerism and psychedelic suburban styles that saturated the interiors of homes from my childhood memories. Just as this was an era when it was o.k. to have wood paneling and blue paisley wallpaper in the same kitchen, it was also a time when the tradition of marital fidelity was being challenged by a generation raised on a steady Sixties diet of freedom and experimentation. Western society was in transition, trying to make sense of a culture liberated by the enlightenment of new gender roles, and until 1977 when the retro-pulp fantasy of Star Wars changed the channel, the Science Fiction genre in film and TV reflected this disillusionment with outmoded ideologies. The danger is that films like Space Station 76 can fool us into thinking we have come a long way since those days, but it's Plotnick's ingenious intention to question that assumption, thus allowing the chilly air of truth to temper his warm mirthful memories. DVD REGION 1

ACTION HEROES WHO DELIGHT ME: Jean-Paul Belmondo

"THAT MAN FROM RIO" (1964: Dir. Philippe De Broca)

There are very few actors in the history of world cinema who are willing to risk their lives for a film. During the silent era, both Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd seemed to dance with death regularly, Lloyd even lost a thumb and forefinger in a botched explosion. For succeeding generations various performers have exhibited a desire to do their own stunts, and in France starting in the Sixties one daredevil actor perched himself above all others on the precipice of excitement. Jean-Paul Belmondo may not have been a vaudeville tumbler like Cary Grant, or a circus acrobat like Burt Lancaster, but this classically trained stage actor was just as fearless taking a punch or leaping from a tall window. Belmondo`s career as a leading man was auspiciously launched in 1960 with the art house hits Breathless and Two Women, and soon after his dramatic talents were firmly established in the challenging role of an intellectual cleric in Leon Morin, Priest (1961).  The next year he began a collaboration that would last for nearly his entire career, when director Phillipe De Broca cast him opposite Tunisian starlet Claudia Cardinale as the eponymous swashbuckling rogue in Cartouche. In this lively romp, Belmondo was allowed to finally cut loose, winning over a delighted audience with his abundant charm and seemingly boundless energy. Both men basked in the unprecedented success of their endeavour, so when De Broca was denied the film rights to the famous Belgian comic book hero Tintin, he quickly developed his own similar adventure film featuring a star whom he knew could deliver the requisite heroic stunts on camera. As with all action adventure films of that era and despite its roots in the traditions of European pulp literature, That Man From Rio, couldn't help but be also influenced by the recent 007 craze, even featuring future Bond baddie Adolfo Thunderball Celi in a supporting role. Proudly flaunting its bubbly buffoonery the film's damsel-in-distress plot concerning stolen native artifacts, was in reality just a pretense to stage all manner of chases, fights and daredevilry, all the while featuring the jet set locations of Brazil, the sweet ethereal beauty of Francoise Dorleac, and of course, Belmondo`s affable humour and awe-inspiring physical courage. Even fifty years later, it still stirs the blood when Bebel (Belmondo`s nickname), performs his own vertigo-inducing high jinks in full view of the lens. It was a feat not attempted again by a major star until a generation later, when Jackie Chan took even bigger risks with often injurious results. That Man From Rio proved to be a substantial hit, and after collaborating on a more comedic follow-up project Up To His Ears (1965) co-starring Belmondo`s then girlfriend Ursula Andress, he and De Broca took a break from each other until their hilarious James Bond fantasy spoof The Man from Acapuclo a.k.a. Le Magnifique (1973), subsequently succeeded by the entertaining con man comedy Incorrigible (1975) and finally Amazon (2000), a late career mis-step uncomfortably combining the science fiction, comedy, and jungle adventure genres. Belmondo would vault into action for other filmmakers as well, but few of the those pictures possess the pure fun and innocence of those he made with De Broca, the filmmaker who made him France`s greatest action star. BLU-RAY