When I first came to Sydney there were four independent cinemas showing non-mainstream movies – the Mandolin, the Encore, the Valhalla and the Chauvel.
Earlier this year there were none.
This lamentable state of affairs - a city with no (excuse the term) “arthouse” cinema AT ALL changed a few weeks ago when the Chauvel re-opened, allowing movies like this one to have a place to be screened.
Wax was released in 1991 and it is firmly placed in the experimental counter-culture of the late 2oth century – writers like William S Burroughs (who features), Thomas Pynchon and J G Ballard loom large.
Jacob Maker (played by the film’s creator David Blair) is a programmer for the military, working on simulation computers for experimental weapons technology. He also does a sideline in beekeeping, using bees he has inherited from his occult dabbling grandfather James 'Hive' Maker (William S Burroughs).
The bees are Mesopotamian and it turns out they have mysterious powers. Jacob begins to have visions – it seems the bees are reincarnations of the dead – which has significance to Jacob given his day job as weapons technician. Guided by a revolving geometric crystal (the bee’s “television”) Jacob wanders off into the desert – actually a missile testing range – to experience visions and confront the nature of death.
Pretty much everything from flying saucers to ancient civilisations, the hollow earth, transmigration of souls and other psychic gobble-de-gook is thrown in and the story, while more or less holding together, comes close to being incomprehensible and largely symbolic by the end. Apparently David Blair knocked it together over six years, incorporating accidents and free association as he went.
The session was prefaced by the Chauvel with an old interview with Harlan Ellison, Sci Fi’s bad boy of the seventies, explaining to us that “far out” shit was being written in the science fiction world now the sixties had happened – so watch out. He was right about that.
Wax also has the distinction of being the first movie to have had an interactive website (warning: big download!) The New York Times recognized the accomplishment, and ran the article "Cult Film is First on the Internet" in its May 23, 1993 business section (see the NYT review).
This review at Amazon is kinda flippant but sums up the Wax experience pretty well anyway:
Did you like "Eraserhead"? Did you like 'Being John Malkovich"? Do you listen to alternative music and read William Burroughs novels and SF and Charles Bukowski? Are you on drugs? Answering "yes" to any two of the preceding questions qualifies you as a good bet for WAX. Blair put a lot into this, and the right viewer will get a lot out of it. I loved it.
3 comments:
Is it the drugs that make alternative cinema just that much more watch-able?? I guess the white stuff on the popcorn in those places isn't really salt. And a large coke isn't by the one by the company with the dynamic ribbon =)
Instead of "Wax" he should have called it "Wacked"
"those places", "alternative cinema"?? Seriously.....they're just films, for goodness sake - films that aren't backed by zionist conspiracy or mafia or evil corporation BIG money. I have a problem with the word "alternative" when it comes to art. Alternative to what?
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