Uncut UK – October 2019

OCTOBER 2019 • UNCUT• 111

The starting point is the formation of The
Satanic Temple, a “nontheistic” religious
group co-founded in 2013 by Lucien Greaves.
With his scarred right eye and sardonic
smile, Greaves seems every inch the hipster
satanist, but as Hail Satan? goes on to show

• because that question mark really is very
  important – Greaves’ project is much more
  serious than it might seem, and the Temple’s
  bid to erect a statue to the demon Baphomet
  in Little Rock, Arkansas, is a Trojan horse to
  smuggle in some truly subversive ideas.
  Rather than blind iconoclasm, The Satanic
  Temple are fighting fire with fire when it
  comes to Christian propaganda, and after
  a bumpy start depicting the Temple as
  bumbling, directionless pranksters, Lane’s
  film reveals itself as a provocative dig at the
  fragile façade of America’s evangelicals.
  Among many surprising reveals, we learn
  that the US government’s religious motto “In
  God We Trust” was a mid-1950s invention,
  coined (literally) in reaction to the godless
  communist countries of the cold war. This is
  just one of the many disturbing ties between
  church and state that the Temple is trying to
  sever, and their commitment to their cause, if
  not always their fashion sense, is admirable.

MEMORY: THE ORIGINS OF ALIEN
Ridley Scott’s Alien will turn 40 next year,
and like many milestones in sci-fi and
horror, it retains a primal fascination that
has endured through the passing decades.
This documentary is a deep dive, sometimes
straying a little into the hinterlands of
esoterica but never less than compelling in
its bold fusion of traditional Making Of with
an attempt rationalise its enduring appeal.
Very few of the cast and crew appear here;
there’s no Ridley, and the two actors that
pop up don’t have a great many behind-the-

scenes scoops to add to the saga. Instead,

director Alexandre O Philippe wants to

dwell on the themes and subtexts of the film,

focusing on how the film was first conceived

(by writer Dan O’Bannon) and how its world

was designed (by Swiss artist HR Giger). This

creative pairing proved to be the film’s big

bang, and though Scott’s masterful direction

served their ideas well, it’s telling that his

more recent excursions into that world

haven’t been anywhere as exciting as the first.

The most likely reason for this is that later

Alien movies became almost existential,

whereas the first, and best, was visceral;

when John Hurt is literally impregnated with

a chest-busting creature, it births the body-

horror genre mastered by Cronenberg et al in

the ’80s. But there are also more unexpected

readings too, such as a brief digression into

the politics of the film, drawing intriguing

parallels with The Deer Hunter in its depiction

of the class structure on board the Nostromo.

Not everything lands, and not all the talking

heads have a point worth making, but this is

far more than just an extended DVD extra.

THE SOUVENIR The Souvenir proved

divisive to say the least at this year’s

Sundance film festival, still eminently the

most “woke” event on the cinematic calendar.

The walkouts were revealing – mostly

under-30s, equal split male and female of

all ethnicities – since there was nothing

contentious or explicit on show on screen. The

deal with Joanna Hogg’s latest is its seemingly

militant display of white privilege, telling a

coming-of-age story from the point of view of

a young woman who lives in a Knightsbridge

flat just a stone’s throw from Harrods.

The setting is the early ’80s, where

20-something film student Julie (Honor

Swinton Byrne, daughter of Tilda) is trying

to strike out on her own. Rebelling against

her posh Norfolk parents, in a bookishly

middle-class way, Julie is working on a black-

and-white documentary about working-

class communities in the north-east. Like

everything else in her life, Julie is unsure

how to proceed with this project, and it’s

during this sprawling period of uncertainty

that a cocky stranger, Tom Burke’s Anthony,

a smooth-talking lower-down in the Foreign

Office, sweeps in and starts to dominate her

life in disturbing ways.

Since rich white people’s problems are

something of a no-no in this new diversity

era, it’s easy to see why audiences found

Hogg’s understated film a turn-off. But

The Souvenir uses these privileges to its

advantage: a grubby tale of addiction

starts to unfold that belies the respectable

surface of Julie’s life, one that inevitably

turns to the subject of toxic masculinity

when Anthony reveals his true inner self.

It’s a creeping tale of dependence made all

the more uncomfortable by its plausibility.

Interesting, too, is a deftly deployed post-

punk soundtrack (The Fall’s “Totally Wired”

pops up at a student party), which deftly

helps to define Julie and her fellow travellers:

smart, culturedpeoplewhodabble in drugs

but never believethatdrugswill come to

define them. DAMON WISE

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T H EM U S TA N G

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