Right, so it’s a 70s Afrofuturist blaxploitation flick created by cosmic jazz artist and absolute legend Sun Ra. Knowing that going in, it still somehow managed not to be what I was expecting.
First things first, like most blaxploitation movies, it’s made on a budget of £2.50, so bear that in mind going in. Despite this, there’s a lot of ambitious stuff, Sun Ra kicking about an alien planet, then landing his spaceship in the Oakland-San Francisco area, then engaging in a war for the souls of African-Americans in an astral card game with the embodiment of the Overseer mentality, the co-operation and collaboration with the systems that oppress Black people. For that alone, it’s worth sticking your head round the door to have a look.
It does have that vanity project problem, where you make film about yourself as the saviour of your people because your mind is so opened and enlightened. Reminds me (as much as I liked it) of Slam, where Saul Williams stops a prisonyard fight with his slam poetry. It doesn’t help that Sun Ra delivers a lot of his lines while looking directly down the camera, or reading his lines held up just the right of it.
It does nonetheless draw you in, with an optimism and hope that manages to fight against its limitations at every step. There are plenty of funny bits, and the whole thing is a bit of a romp.
The liberation, equality and dignity that Sun Ra fights for doesn’t apply to women however, and the film’s only female characters, one white woman and one black woman, are stripped to provide full frontal nudity, the only characters in the film to do so. They are initially used as trophies and objects to confirm manhood and status, then laterally are subjected to misogynistic violence. So, yeah.
Space is the Place is an interesting snapshot of a time where rising optimism seemed pitted against longstanding cynicism, a place which seen from 2022 was a high point that peaked and receeded in the wake of a starker reality. The magic and kookiness Sun Ra brings tries to keep alive a childhood in the weary adults that populate his world and the world of the viewer. Despite its limitations, for such efforts, it still has merit.