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A couple of years ago there was an “alien” fad. I remember this because I was sucked into it. Skater clothes began having these ugly little alien characters on them. They had giant heads, big bug eyes and tiny little bodies. On the shirts they were pictured as rebels, doing whatever the hell they wanted to do. I had one of an alien peeing in front of a “no peeing” sign (whoever made these shirts was a “genius”). Kids thought that this was brilliant. Alien used to be scary, big, with tentacles and stuff. This kind of alien was new, it broke all rules and regulations. Wrong. You see, the design had already be used many times, and probably brought into the mainstream by Steven Spielberg in a little film called Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.

The movie begins in a wind-swept desert and the arrival of French scientist Lacombe (immortal director Francois Truffaut). Lacombe is told by a bunch of other scientists that he ahs to come see what they found. What they found a is a squadron of mint condition fighter planes from 1945, smack dab in the middle of the desert of Nowhere. All the scientists proceed to scratch their heads in unison.

Even more puzzling is what is happening to little Barry Guiler (Cary Guffey). One night, Barry’s toys go completely nutzoid for no reason. His cymbal monkey (the kid has a mangiotto action figure! Lucky him!) starts tapping, his toy train starts running and various other toys go crazy. We see Barry run out of the house, seemingly attracted by an invisible force. He eventually gets kidnapped by the lights.

Yet another character makes his entry in the story. Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) is a happily-married electrician with three children who is called out at the last minute that night. As he drives to his location that night, he almost runs over a small boy (Barry, of course) and his mother (Melinda Dillon). He also witnesses something extremely strange. The boy was following something alright: in the sky, red and blue lights flash past them. (Yeah, you guessed it.) Neary becomes obsessed with the little lights, guessing (correctly) that there’s something bigger behind it.

If you’re the kind of person who watches Rosemary’s Baby to see the baby, or watches Rat Race to see a rodent marathon, or watch Sweet November to see some quality acting by Keanu Reeves, Close Encounters will disappoint you. There are no aliens for most of the movie. Instead, most of the time is spent building up to the aliens’ arrival. In the scenes with Lacombe, CE is a science fiction film. But in the scenes with Neary, CE turns into a fantasy.

This is not Schindler’s List’s Spielberg. This Spielberg was drawn to telling stories for people, and making a crapload of money for it. This is quite evident in his direction. The aliens are depicted as peace-loving and pacifist, something that had rarely, if ever, been done before. The last thirty minutes are extremely strange, with lots of light and beeping a la Kubrick’s 2001. It’s not a surprise that many people recall having seen it while on drugs. Hell, drugs would probably have helped me understand the ending.

The worst part, however, of Spielberg’s mass-market appeal is the shameless corporate product placement. Imagine this for a minute: the lights go off in the city, block by block. Spielberg lingers on a bird’s eye view of the city, then zooms onto a McDonald’s sign (you know, the one with the “94 bajillion ClownBurgers sold”). It lingers there for a second, followed in succession by shots of a Shell gas station, the McDonalds and various other corporations. Talk about selling out.

That’s not to say I didn’t like it. For all its faults, Close Encounters is still a very enjoyable film. The fact that the aliens are only a backdrop of the story means that the script can be more though-provoking and rely less on the special effects to make the film enjoyable. Like this year’s A.I., Close Encounters appeals to different audiences for different reasons.

Richard Dreyfuss is great as the obsessed Neary. Whilst I can’t say I really like the guy, his freaky performance is really quite convincing. You seem to understand all the weird stuff he does even though you know in the back of your mind he’s completely barmy. (note: gratuitous use of obscure British swears will from this point on be discontinued) Melinda Dillon is also pretty good as the hysterical mother of Barry. Francois Truffaut is yet another in a long line of directors who match their films by giving great performances.Truffaut’s performance is even sparingly sprinkled with French so that instead of seeing a pompous idiot with an overdone French accent, we’re seeing a pompous idiot with a French accent who at least sounds like a real French guy.

Close Encounters has its share of clichés (a cute, marble-mouthed little kid, a scene in which the character is trying to climb up but can’t and at the last minute grabs the hand) but it remains an intelligent, ponderous fantasy, even if a movie’s values have changed since 1977.

Swirling lights do not a good movie make. Spielberg makes a good movie here, however.

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originally posted: 11/10/01 10:08:53
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