Sun Ra has intrigued me for decades now. I am not a huge fan, but I discovered his work around the same time I became aware of artists like The Residents, and I suspect there many fans of the latter who are also those of the former.
For those not in the know, Ra claimed to be from Saturn, and always did so with a straight face. While nobody believed him, the extremity of some of the freest of his free jazz seemed to provide supporting evidence. Never mind he also made some perfectly commercial be-bop and doo-wop early in his career. In the 1970’s, he even flirted with disco.
In 1974, he starred in what may be his most direct attempt to reach out to a greater audience, the motion picture Space Is the Place. This independently produced feature film is part concert film, part monologue, part a battle with Satan and part conspiracy thriller. The last of those feels like an element slapped on after the fact, as if to give it more of a semblance of plot. A general vibe of blaxploitation permeates throughout.
The overall framing device has Ra engaged in a battle against evil (Raymond Johnson) for…I don’t know what exactly. Seemingly inspired by the chess game Max von Sydow plays against Death in The Seventh Seal, these two sit across a table in the desert playing what seems to be an eternal card game. The deck is a variation on tarot cards and the rules seem to be made up as they go along.
One of those cards has Ra’s spaceship on it. His transport is of a unique design. From one angle, it looks like a distorted human tooth. From another, it distinctly looks like it has boobs with psychedelic patterns painted on them. And here I thought Battle Beyond the Stars was the first film to have a spacecraft with tits.
This ship comes to Earth, bringing the press to the landing site. Ra has come to bring Black people to a beautiful and peaceful world where they can live without the strife they endure on our planet. But Johnson tries to trap low-income Black people through various means, whether those be liquor, drugs or prostitution.
At least, these are what I assume the messages to be, as they are a bit muddled in the presentation. Further obfuscating the delivery are bits about Ra’s Outer Space Employment Agency. Given he isn’t paying anybody, I think “employment” is a dishonest term. Also, there’s a bit that doesn’t scan well where Ra refuses the application of an unemployed NASA engineer who is desperate for work, declaring him ineligible “because of a particular race you are”. I realize this is some quid pro quo for all the people of color government agencies doubtlessly rejected outright, but it still isn’t a great look. Then again again, Ra makes a solid point about Black people not being invited to take part in the space age, with only white people walking on the moon.
Specifically, white men have only walked on the moon to date, which brings to mind an unfortunate aspect of the film. Given the high-minded principles expressed by Ra, I was baffled by a scene where two nurses in a hospital strip down to full-frontal nudity. Admittedly, this moment does have a funny twist, where the patient (Christopher Brooks) thinks they have arrived to have a threesome with him, only for his doctor (Johnson) to kick him out of his own room, so as to party with both girls alone.
Among my favorite moments in the picture are some that were likely filmed only to help pad out the runtime. These are studio shots of the various elaborate costumes of Ra’s ensemble, where Egyptology is obviously a strong influence. Ra monologues over these shots. When we see him, he’s wearing this astonishingly large headpiece that has to be heavy, regardless of what it is made of.
Perhaps the most unusual aspect of this movie is the music. I mentioned earlier how the musician worked in many genres. With a feature film being the best opportunity to reach the widest audience possible, one would think he would use some of his more accessible music here. Instead, it is the type of rather extreme free jazz that might prompt some wags to say they felt overcharged.
Space Is the Place concludes with a small-scale take on the rapture, in which Ra takes worthy Black people aboard his ship to his utopia on Saturn. I think that’s an interesting idea, but it’s pretty depressing that the only way he believes his people can live a fulfilling live is by leaving the planet. For those left behind, take solace in his intention to teleport the faithful through music.
Dir: John Coney
Starring Sun Ra, Raymond Johnson
Watched on the blu-ray included in the Modern Harmonic vinyl box set Space Is the Place: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack