Before making perhaps the strangest family Christmas movie
ever with his fictional directorial debut film Le Martien de Noël otherwise known as The Christmas
Martian, Canadian cinematographer Bernard Gosselin started out in
documentaries for the National Film Board of Canada and is regarded as one of the early adopters of the so
called ‘direct cinema’
movement of documentary style. Though a
skilled technical craftsman with a strong track record, the filmmaker tried his
hand at children’s family fare with the independently produced science-fiction infused
Christmas hybrid The Christmas Martian.
Understandably after the film came out, he immediately went right back
to documentaries. Nevertheless the film,
now souped up by Vinegar Syndrome’s sublabel Canadian International Pictures in
a new 2K digital restoration from the original 35mm camera negative, became
part of producer Rock Demer’s Tales for All film series which also
included such bizarro kids movies as The Dog Who Stopped the War and The
Peanut Butter Solution.
Positive the creature is a Martian, the two
siblings track his green footprints back to a flying saucer where, as it turns
out, the Martian’s ship is damaged and he is desperately trying to return to
his home planet. However, unbeknownst to
the kids who find themselves dealing with new alien technologies including a Mary
Poppins inspired flying gag replete with first-person point-of-view footage
of the two kids flying hundreds of feet in the air, the police and locals form
a vigilante mob determined to ensnare the alien visitor.
A downright peculiar precursor to such
alien kiddie fare as Steven Spielberg’s E.T., Flight of the Navigator
or Mac and Me, the only fictional feature film by the renowned
documentary filmmaker is, second to Joe Berlinger’s Blair Witch 2: Book of
Shadows one of the most batshit examples of a nonfiction filmmaker trying
to do fiction. For a director ordinarily pointing his camera at reality, there are some really wild fantasy set pieces that sends this psychedelic excursion even further into orbit.
A bit like an
extraterrestrial Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory replete with a
multicolored lighted spaceship, crusty townsfolk dubbed over hilariously in the
English version, childlike carefree wonderment and possibly the weirdest
humanoid alien creature in cinema history.
Visually, the film is a treat for the eyes shot by eventual The Red
Violin cinematographer Alain Dostie and the score by Jacques Perron is
deliciously oddball, augmenting the already off kilter proceedings.
--Andrew Kotwicki