Movie of the Month: "Brother from Another Planet"

Before John Sayles broke into his groove as a director of social message flicks, like “Lone Star” or the upcoming “Amigo”, he worked as a co-writer and script doctor throughout the industry. Mostly for genre pictures under such directors as Guillermo del Toro, Joe Dante or Roger Corman.

This might explain the odd fusion in his first feature-length film, “The Brother from Another Planet”, which he produced himself with money out-of-pocket.

The premise is simple. A three-toed escaped slave from outer space comes crashing down to New York. The catch is that he’s humanoid and he’s black.What follows are his varied, humorous and often hypnotic encounters with the natives of Harlem and the city at large.

The ‘brother’, played by Joe Morton (whom you may remember as Cyberdyne employee Miles Dyson), is incapable of speech. So, the people he meets inevitably fill the void with nervous ramblings and musings that give this odd cultural gem an added spice of life. The result is a film with a rich sense of heritage and personality that doesn’t feel preachy or instructive even when it’s trying to be. Rather, the simple innocence with which our alien brother falls into and out of the triumphs and failings of his new neighbors simply feels true to life.

It’s a bit dated. The sound and the feel. But considering the budget, a young David Strathairn as one of two effete bounty hunters seeking out ‘the brother’, and a fistful of excellently-shot urban vignettes, Sayles’s first foray into race relations still feels fresh even after twenty years.