The Brother from Another Planet (1984)

DVD, Seattle, WA

September 18, 2007

***1/2 / ****

The independent classic, The Brother from Another Planet is proof positive that good films come in many different packages. Part science-fiction bizarre, part social commentary, and all low-budget ‘80s chutzpa, The Brother is some funky weird entertaining shit that earns its place as indie royalty with wit and engaging storytelling holding us in its grip from beginning to end.

The plot of Brother must be seen to be believed, but I’ll give it my best shot. A mute black man (Joe Morgan), identified simply as “brother” by everyone he meets, crash lands in his space ship in Jersey City, New Jersey as a refugee determined to escape the bonds of slavery on his home planet. After hopping a ferry to The Big Apple the brother makes his way to Harlem where he meets all manner of interesting people in all colors, shades, and ethnicities. Soon, he is moseying around the city fixing arcade machines with his special recuperative powers, engaging with druggies, social workers, bar hounds, and Jazz songstresses and running scared from a pair of alien white dudes dressed in black and bent on capturing the brother and returning him to the slavery he is trying to escape. Very peculiar, indeed, but equally interesting and entertaining in its analogous comparisons to our own strange world.

The key to Brother’s success as a film is its wit and the way it makes use of its silent lead character. By creating an innocent, passive black man/alien merely trying to make sense of his strange new environment and never having him project opinions or judgment on anyone or anything he meets, writer/director John Sayles paints a fascinating picture of human nature and stereotypes most of us can relate to. While the brother is silent throughout, we are free to laugh as those he encounters project their outspoken opinions of him onto him without care of what he might think or truly be. Clever scripting and direction for sure, and by having this happen over and over and over with many different characters each projecting something different the film is rather genius. Riding this riff throughout, the film reaches its most poignant moment three quarters of the way through.

The scene I am referring to involves a whiney voiced white city kid weirdo (Fisher Stevens) plopping himself down on the subway directly next to the brother. Within minutes he has forced the brother to watch him perform a magic routine where he tells a rapid-fire story with playing cards amusing, confusing, and then stunning his one-man audience. Or at least that’s how he probably sees it. The final punch line: an off-handed comment about all the white people getting off the train before it reaches uptown, the ultimate vanishing trick. The scene is perfect comedy, perfect commentary, and perfectly entertaining cinema as fresh now as it surely was in 1984.

Like most low budget indie flicks, especially ones as boldly ambitious as Brother, the problem, if Brother has one, is that it goes on a bit too long and gets a bit goofy the last 30 or so minutes. Chasing ensues, as is often the case in low budget films, adding unnecessary slapstick to the proceedings until at last rescued by a final bit of strange yet poignant commentary on immigration in America. It is a fitting conclusion to the film’s brazen social commentary, one of the most entertaining and effective message movies I have seen in some time. Appropriately uplifting and concise in its implications, The Brother from Another Planet is the gold standard of low-budget bizarre filmmaking and a movie not to be missed even if, like me, you already did the first time.