Space is the Place
It’s interesting how, as much as I loved Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther,” it’s use of afrofuturist ideas isn’t what led me to the genre. Rather, it was the idea that filmmakers were using music- my first creative love- and science-fiction- my favorite genre- to tell Black stories in a way that, honestly, white people aren’t equipped to do. That’s ironic to say in a review of an afrofuturist film directed by a white guy, but John Coney is not the creative driver of 1974’s “Space is the Place”- that would be the legendary musician, Sun Ra. A composer known for his experimental fusions of jazz, synthesizers, bebop and jazz, “Space is the Place” is Sun Ra’s philosophical conception about where he saw Black people in 1970s America, and how he hoped his ideas would help them break free from the place that white America had them in. It wouldn’t surprise me if you told me that Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman were inspired by this film to make their 2022 film, “Neptune Frost”- the filmmaking is more polished, but the soul of both films from a thematic standpoint is very similar.
The film takes place in early ’70s Chicago. Sun Ra disappeared on tour in Europe in 1969 and traveled space with his Arkestra, as his band was known. In his travels, he has found a planet where he hopes to transport the American Black community. And so, in a meeting with “the Overseer” (Raymond Johnson)- whom is a devil-like character whose intention is to tempt the American Black community into continued subjugation- Ra plays a game of cards to “win” the community. Sun Ra hopes to use his music as the manner to teleport “the whole planet,” but he’s often misunderstood in his intentions.
I may be on a kick of Sun Ra’s music for a minute, having been introduced to it by this soundtrack. As an electronic composer, I’m always curious to hear how composers utilize synthesized sounds in their music- especially when it’s not the dominant part of the soundscape- and Ra’s genre fusions, his use of percussion, rhythm and jazz ideas in addition to synthesizers, landed strongly with me. Whether it’s instrumental compositions like “Cosmic Forces” or something like the soundtrack’s opening composition, the vocal-led “It’s After the End of the World” or their unique take on a “jingle” in “Outer Space Incorporated,” if nothing else, the music in “Space is the Place” was going to absolutely be up my alley.
“Space is the Place” takes its inspirations from a few different places, it appears, not just in Ra’s music, but from real-life and cinema. The way the film goes back to the game between Sun Ra’s game with the Overseer feels taken from Ingmar Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal,” and the legendary chess game with Death Max Von Sydow’s knight plays. We see two federal agents spying on Sun Ra, and later, try to assassinate him, which feels very much like how the American government was distrusting of Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s. The Overseer uses Jimmy Fey (Christopher Brooks), a reporter whom wants to get Ra’s message out to the masses, as a pawn in his game with Sun Ra, tempting him with the lifestyle the Overseer lives, but never quite giving it to him. At 82 minutes, there isn’t a lot of depth of character, but there is depth of action; I wouldn’t say any of the characters in “Space is the Place” are particularly complicated, but the actions we see them take are profound, like the Black men who try to help Sun Ra, even risking their own lives to do so. That’s because they see something necessary in his philosophy, even if they don’t particularly get it at first. This is where science-fiction especially can stand out among all genres of fiction- the characters are faced with something they may not understand, or be able to explain, but they still feel moved to act in a way that they feel will help them in the long run. That idea permeates throughout all of Coney’s film, which may not be a technically-polished one, but is as alive and energized as any genre film I’ve seen. And I want to experience more like it.
