Science Fiction Against the Margins Film Series
UCLA Film & Television Archive

part of
PST: Art & Science Collide

Is He or Isn't He?: 
"Man Facing Southeast" and "The Brother from Another Planet"

November 9, 2024 – 7:30 p.m.
Billy Wilder Theater, Hammer Museum

Tickets are free, no RSVP required
Box office opens at 6:30 p.m.

Man Facing Southeast (Argentina, 1986)

One day, an odd, lanky young man appears at a state-run psychiatric hospital in Buenos Aires; nobody knows how he got there. The man, who says his name is Rantés, is well spoken but claims to be some sort of extraterrestrial visitor to Earth. Through Rantés’ perspective, bureaucratic jobs and decisions are portrayed as comedic nonsense, and under his influence, fellow hospital inmates rise up against hospital managers in a cacophony of events. But when the film turns away from comedy, the darkness of the psychiatric hospital’s coverups and control is exposed.

Writer-director Eliseo Subiela based his central figure on a man in his neighborhood who for weeks would stand at the corner, staring into a window a few stories up. Subiela’s film combines ideas from his observations with elements from Adolfo Bioy Casares’ 1940 novel, "The Invention of Morel," which entertains the idea of holograms. After a long search, Subiela found his Rantés when watching a televised play and noticed Hugo Soto’s particular face. Soto went on to perform in several more Argentine films before his untimely death at the age of 41. Man Facing Southeast was one of several allegorical political science fiction films created in post-dictatorship Argentina, released just one year after the Trial of the Juntas found members of the military government responsible for the disappearance and torture of thousands of civilians. Reflecting on a time in which speaking out against the government could get one imprisoned (or worse), Subiela’s film speaks in code about violence, both physical and mental. Could Rantés really be an alien? And if he is telling the truth, what do we make of the people in control who attempt to bury his words?

The Brother from Another Planet (U.S., 1984)

He arrives at Ellis Island like the immigrants in the late-19th and early-20th century, but our newcomer, played by Joe Morton, is not from another country; he’s from another planet. Even though he is non-human, the appearance of the mute alien’s skin tone identifies him as a Black man on Earth. Our unnamed protagonist, referred to simply as “Brother” by the locals, is being chased through New York City by two space alien bounty hunter types. He passes the time evading his oppressors by observing the class and racial divides on the streets and in bars. “Brother” communicates through his actions: fixing machines with his magical touch and aiding vulnerable community members in Harlem. His acute listening — both to those present and those in the past — allows him to express one of his many alien powers, empathetic listening, a skill that has been long lost among human city folk. Following him around Harlem, silently observing the dynamics of normalized city life, the film at times feels like an alien slacker flick.

Written in about a week, writer-director John Sayles’ fourth feature became his biggest box office hit. Sayles wanted the film to be about the immigrant experience of having to assimilate in a strange land through the parallel of literally being alien to your new surroundings. Even though a low-budget film, The Brother From Another Planet has had a lasting impact on American audiences for both its cinematic qualities and its socio-political message about the immigrant and Black experience in the United States.

 

Background on Film Series
The Science Fiction Against the Margins film series of the UCLA Film & TV Archive is a constituent part of the Getty’s PST: Art & Science Collide, a broad range of art exhibitions and events held throughout Southern California in fall 2024. The films in the festival will be shown free of charge from October 4–December 14, 2024 at the Billy Wilder Theater of the Hammer Museum at UCLA. The series is presented in partnership with Cinema & Media Studies of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television; the UCLA International Institute is a community partner of the festival.

Filmmakers showcased in Science Fiction Against the Margins occupy the “margins” of mainstream cinema in order to challenge and subvert the science fiction genre. Hollywood’s ubiquitous sci-fi story structure functions within the conventions of action-driven melodrama, resolving social issues in private, emotional and moral terms that reinforce the status quo.

While the focus is on the feature film as a global form of mass entertainment, the series also includes documentaries, shorts, video art and television episodes.

Cost : Free

Sponsor(s): UCLA International Institute, Film and Television Archive, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, Consultate General of Argentina in Los Angeles and Latin American Cinemateca of Los Angeles