It seems that the only group who took to LSD more fervently than the hippies were the spooks. The spies. The CIA. LSD was first synthesized in the late 1930s and only by the early 1950s the US government started experimenting with the drug’s potential on human subjects with or without their knowledge or consent. The experiments were brought to light in the 1970s as Projects Bluebird/Artichoke, and most famously, MKUltra. But as you’ll see, this open secret was already the basis of spy thrillers in the late 1960s.

Do you like a good mystery? Are you open to entertaining a good conspiracy theory every now and again? Have you read one too many David McGowan books? This September come to Spectacle and scratch that itch as we highlight three films that explore the connection between covert ops, the search for mind control, and LSD.

MINDFIELD
LA MÉMOIRE ASSASSINÉE
Dir. Jean-Claude Lord, 1989
Canada. 92 min
In English

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 – 7:30 PM

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Not to be confused with the Alien Workshop video of the same name, MINDFIELD stars Michael Ironside as the hard-nosed sergeant, Kellen O’Reilly, who is fresh from a divorce, and at the center of a brewing police union strike. Errant memories, depression, and flashbacks plague O’Reilly who deals silently with his ongoing history of mental health issues.

The police union’s legal representative, Sarah Paradis (Lisa Langlois), is splitting her time between the strike and prosecuting an ongoing case against the medical facility Coldhaven and its head doctor, Satorius (Christopher Plummer). Paradis alleges that Satorius used CIA funds to “play with human brains” and conduct experiments on unsuspecting patients. But Sarah is not the only degree of separation that Sergeant O’Reilly has with Coldhaven. If O’Reilly can regain his memories, thwart a group of company men up from the states, and unlock the killer implanted deep inside, will he be able to close the books on Coldhaven once and for all?

Leave it to the Canadians to have the realist take on Project MKUltra. Jean-Claude Lord’s MINDFIELD is surprisingly grounded and gritty with Ironside giving possibly the most accurate on-screen performance of someone under the effects of LSD. Nailing that “oh fuck” moment when the peak hits and you realize any simple task is just too much to ask for. The CIA operatives are also not exaggerated to the levels of tinseltown sexiness seen in the likes of Ethan Hunt or Jack Ryan. They appear as they are, schlubs. Evil terrorist schlubs intertwined with organized crime. The CIA would never let Hollywood get away with such a portrayal.

THE NET
DAS NETZ
Dir. Lutz Dammbeck, 2003
Germany. 115 min
In English and German with English subtitles

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 24 – 5 PM
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 – 7:30 PM

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“How do computers, LSD, and hippies fit together?”

Hovering in a space between documentary and film essay, German multidisciplinary artist Lutz Dammbeck’s THE NET is a meandering line connecting the various dots between the recently deceased Ted Kaczynski, LSD, the CIA, hippies, and the internet. Structurally the film acts as a concept map, following word bubbles and their connecting lines as Dammbeck literally draws them.

THE NET uses Kaczynski and his backstory (a subject of CIA experimentation while a math student at Harvard?) to explore the loss of reality and its replacement with the virtual. Kaczynski’s refusal of this world is contrasted in the film by the characters of that ilk that he sought to destroy. Those who accepted and championed the global network and interconnectedness; like Whole Earth Catalog author Stewart Brand, literary agent (and Epstein pal) John Brockman, the physicist and philosopher Heinz von Foerster, and even computer scientist David Gelernter, a victim himself of the Unabomber.

LSD: FLESH OF THE DEVIL
LSD – INFERNO PER POCHI DOLLARI
Dir. Massimo Mida, 1967
Italy. 86 min
In dubbed English

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2 – MIDNIGHT
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29 – MIDNIGHT

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For the completists, this late sixties Italian Bond rip-off is complete with waterskiing, LSD, peeping, blow darts, helicopters, LSD, explosions, car chases, scuba diving, guns, and LSD.

The film starts off with a literal bang as a small boy takes out an entire cadre of ne’er do wells abducting a little girl, with only a toy car and some curare darts. This is our introduction to the film’s protagonist: Rex Miller. Flash forward and Rex is a fully grown secret agent, played by 1950s American TV actor Guy Madison. Working for an agency that is never named outright—but the name of his to-be-discovered coworker in the field may be a clue—Rex is up against a “secret organization with a strange name: ECHO”, and it’s mysterious kingpin, Mr. X. What is their evil plan? LSD baby.

The film’s “Flesh of the Devil” subtitle is a disappointing example of a studio attempting to sell the movie as something else to English speaking audiences. The original Italian title, which translates more closely to “LSD: Hell for a Few Dollars”, is far more enticing. Wait, you mean I get to see cool colors and people’s heads turn into animals? And it’s only a coupla bucks!? Far out man.

RA: PATH OF THE SUN GOD
dir. Lesley Keen, 1990
Scotland. 72 min.
In English.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 5 – 5 PM with director Q&A! (This event is $10)

MONDAY, AUGUST 7 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 11 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, AUGUST 22 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, AUGUST 27 – 5 PM

GENERAL ADMISSION TICKETS

A three-part animated feature film on themes from ancient Egyptian art and mythology.

Four years in the making, RA was created and shot entirely in Glasgow by Persistent Vision Animation, Scotland’s only animation studio at the time. The film combines traditional animation techniques with special optical effects to produce a dream-like evocation of Ancient Egyptian beliefs about the Creation and Man’s place within it.

DAWN: The Creation
The first part of the film is given over to the Egyptian Genesis. The Egyptians had many gods and goddesses and creation myths. Ra brings these myths together in a single version and concentrates on the story of Osiris and Isis and their battle with their evil brother Set.

NOON: The Year of the King
Part two shows the intertwining of the world of the gods with that of the Divine Pharaoh, whom the ancient Egyptians believed to be the son of the Sun God Ra. The life of the Divine Pharaoh is depicted as a journey through the rituals which surround his initiation into temple life.

NIGHT: The Gates of the Underworld
In death, the Pharaoh continues his journey in the Underworld in the boat of the Sun God Ra, traveling through the twelve hours of night and conquering the powers of darkness before being resurrected at the dawn of the new day.

Join us on Saturday, August 5th for a very special remote Q&A with the animator and director, Lesley Keen!

Screening with:

TAKING A LINE FOR A WALK: A HOMAGE TO THE WORK OF PAUL KLEE
dir. Lesley Keen, 1983
Scotland. 11 min.
In English.

ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE
dir. Lesley Keen, 1984
Scotland. 6 min.
In English.

BURRELLESQUE
dir. Lesley Keen, 1990
Scotland. 7 min.
In English.

Has the ongoing environmental collapse that’s scorched the planet and turned marine life against us got you feeling down? Do you pine for the days when our fears of Armageddon were driven more by nukes than nature? Do you dream of post-apocalyptic wastelands dotted with palm trees and pristine beaches? Then come join us at Spectacle this August for a look at the work of Filipino filmmaker and master of “Maxsploitation” cinema, Willy Milan.

Milan came up among the same wave of Filipino filmmakers that included Eddie Romero, Bobby Suarez, and Cirio Santiago, whose careers were boosted by foreign studios’ interest in the Philippines as a haven of lax regulation and low-cost labor in the 1970s and 80s. Yet while his contemporaries’ work was shepherded by the likes of Roger Corman and Samuel Arkoff for distribution to North America’s drive-in and grindhouse circuits, Milan’s films were largely domestic affairs, produced and distributed primarily for Pinoy audiences.

Milan was arguably the Philippines’ earliest adopter of “Maxsploitation” cinema— The subgenre of dystopian action movies sparked by the success of MAD MAX and its sequel— at a time when the genre was dominated by Australian and Italian filmmakers. Milan’s early films helped put the Philippines on the post-apocalyptic map, with the country’s beaches and jungles making for a fascinating alternative setting to the barren deserts and decimated cityscapes preferred by the Aussies and Italians.

Surprisingly, to this day much of Milan’s output has yet to see stateside theatrical or home video releases, with many of his films surviving solely via dusty Paragon VHS releases from over 30 years ago. In other words, perfect Spectacle summer viewing, replete with high body counts, logic-defying action, awkward dubbing, and killer soundtracks.

W IS WAR
dir. Willy Milan, 1983
Philippines. 91 min.
In English (dubbed).

TUESDAY, AUGUST 1 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, AUGUST 6 – 5 PM
MONDAY, AUGUST 14 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 26 – MIDNIGHT

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The Weapons of Death, The Vehicles of Destruction, The Army of Terror… Together they spread their evil across the land. But then there was… W!

Filipino action staple, Anthony Alonzo, stars as W (inexplicably referred to as “W2” throughout), a rogue police sergeant who winds up the victim of evil cult leader-slash-opium supplier-slash-castration enthusiast, Nosfero, after his corrupt department… ahem… drops the ball on their investigation. Newly testicle-less, W vows his revenge on the crime lord and his army of mind-controlled biker thugs, willing to engage in all-out war with or without the help of his department.

Milan came out the gate firing on all cylinders with his first Maxsploitation feature, which features some of the best “tooling up” montages and literally explosive climaxes of its era.

MAD WARRIOR
(aka CLASH OF THE WARLORDS)
dir. Willy Milan, 1984
Philippines. 75 min.
In English (dubbed).

THURSDAY, AUGUST 3 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 11 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 19 – MIDNIGHT
MONDAY, AUGUST 28 – 10 PM

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In the battle for life, you have to kill or be killed.

Anthony Alonzo returns as Rex, a survivor living in the aftermath of World War III. Most of the world has been rendered uninhabitable, save for a small fortified island colony in the Pacific led by the sadistic Maizon, a one-eyed cyborg who gets his kicks forcing his legions of gladiators to fight each other to the death. After a botched escape attempt, Rex’s wife and child are killed at the hands of Maizon, setting our hero off on a bloodthirsty quest for revenge.

Willy Milan’s Maxsploitation trend continued full-force with this spiritual sequel to W IS WAR, reuniting many of the same performers, locations, costumes, and armored battle tricycles featured in its predecessor.

ULTIMAX FORCE
dir. Willy Milan, 1987
Philippines/United States. 82 min.
In English (dubbed).

FRIDAY, AUGUST 4 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 12 – MIDNIGHT
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, AUGUST 29 – 10 PM

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The Ultimax Force is an elite group of operatives, each a trained U.S. Commando and card-carrying member of the Ninja Society of California. Their mission: To liberate a Vietnamese POW camp run by a sadistic colonel who’s mercilessly slaughtering prisoners in a display of rabid madness.

With the Maxsploitation trend mostly languishing by the late-80s, Willy Milan turned his sights towards two other VHS market-friendly subgenres that were gaining popularity abroad— Ninjas and ‘Nam— in this co-production between the U.S. and Philippines. The two are combined with about as much subtlety as the heroes’ bandanas emblazoned with both the American and Japanese flags, but what it lacks in nuance it more than makes up for with its incredibly well-choreographed fight sequences and a truly ridiculous amount of explosions.

“Several of Michael Dudikofs mates with swords and guns. American Ninja meets Missing in Action. Fank u”
—Literally the IMDB synopsis

LE ORME
(aka FOOTPRINTS) (aka FOOTPRINTS ON THE MOON) (aka PRIMAL IMPULSE)
dir. Luigi Bazzoni, 1975
Italy. 96 mins.
In English (dubbed) with a few minutes of Italian.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 1 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 12 – 3 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 18 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, AUGUST 21 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30 – 7:30 PM

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In Luigi Bazzoni’s uniquely hallucinatory LE ORME, memories of a science fiction film seen in childhood return to haunt Alice (Florinda Bolkan, of LIZARD IN A WOMAN’S SKIN). The fragments of the film lodged in her memory concern an astronaut left behind on the moon; as Alice becomes more and more preoccupied with this vision, her life begins to spin out of control.

Shown at Spectacle in its first “Spectober” programme, LE ORME (originally reedited and rereleased in the States and Europe as PRIMAL IMPULSE) is an unsung masterpiece of 70s genre cinema, marrying the sustained ambient dread of gialli with god-tier cinematography by Vittorio Storaro (just after lensing Elizabeth Taylor in the similarly mental IDENTITK and before Bertolucci’s epic folly NOVOCENTO.) Klaus Kinski features in an extended cameo as the head of Mission Control.

“This hallucinatory Italian film resists easy classification, attempting to subjectively portray the fractured, paranoid psyche of a woman suddenly haunted by memories of a bizarre science fiction film seen in childhood. Florinda Balkan drifts through cinematographer Vittorio Storaro‘s strange, beautiful tableaux much like Monica Vitti in RED DESERT. Often mischaracterized as a giallo—I suppose simply because it’s Italian and stars Balkan—this is more of a haunting puzzle film grinding inexorably toward abject hysterics.”
—Screen Slate

“Psychedelically haunting… An existentialist adventure that combines the narrative mystery of SOLARIS with the vivid visions of Argento.”
—Electric Sheep Magazine

“Seek it out and unravel its mystery…One of the most unique and overlooked Italian films of the ‘70s.”
—Moon In The Gutter

Following our U.S. premiere run of his 2019 feature, VIDEOPHOBIA, earlier this year, Spectacle Theater is thrilled to welcome back Daisuke Miyazaki for a retrospective of his work.

After graduating from Waseda University, Miyazaki participated in a New York University film program in Japan where his thesis film, THE 10TH ROOM, won the program’s Grand Prix prize. Miyazaki went on to work as a production designer and assistant director with filmmakers such as Leos Carax and Kiyoshi Kurosawa, before making his feature directorial debut in 2011 with END OF THE NIGHT.

Over the course of the past decade, Miyazaki has developed one of Japan’s most inventive and fearless independent filmmakers. In 2013, he was selected for Berlinale Talents, the Berlin Film Festival’s talent development and networking platform, resulting in the anthology feature film, 5 TO 9, which premiered at the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival in 2015. Miyazaki’s subsequent work has been screened at film festivals around the world, with his features, YAMATO (CALIFORNIA) and TOURISM, receiving rave reviews from the likes of the Hollywood Reporter, Variety, and the New York Times.

Join us on Saturday, July 29th for back-to-back screenings of YAMATO (CALIFORNIA) and TOURISM, followed by Q&As with the filmmaker after each. Regular screenings of both will continue throughout the month of August, along with a collection of Miyazaki’s recent short film works.

YAMATO (CALIFORNIA)
(大和（カリフォルニア）)
dir. Daisuke Miyazaki, 2016
Japan. 119 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, AUGUST 6 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 18 – 5 PM
MONDAY, AUGUST 28 – 7:30 PM

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Sakura (Hanae Kan) is an angsty teenager living near a U.S. military base in the Tokyo suburb of Yamato. Sakura aspires to one day become a rapper like the American MCs she admires, but is constantly struck with stage fright when performing in front of an audience. When Rei (Nina Endo), the daughter of her mother’s American soldier boyfriend, comes to visit from California, she and Sakura strike up a rocky bond over their shared love of music, setting Sakura on a course towards facing her fear and making her dream a reality.

For his second feature, Miyazaki largely drew from his own experience growing up in Yamato, where the local culture was heavily influenced by the U.S. military’s Atsugi Airbase located in the center of town. Sakura’s rebelliousness reflects the tension many local residents felt being torn between the Eastern and Western world; on the one hand cultivating their own individual Japanese identities, while on the other, having Western cultural influence frequently imposed on them. In a sense, Sakura’s coming-of-age against the vacant, capitalism-driven landscape of Yamato is as much her own story as it is the story of Japan’s own global identity and complex relationship to Western extraterritoriality and colonization that persists to this day.

TOURISM
dir. Daisuke Miyazaki, 2018
Japan/Singapore. 77 min.
In Japanese & English with English subtitles.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 3 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, AUGUST 13 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 25 – 5 PM
TUESDAY, AUGUST 29 – 7:30 PM

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When Nina (Nina Endo) wins a pair of free airline tickets, she leaves her dingy apartment and part-time factory job to take her first trip abroad. She and her best friend, Su (Sumire), travel to Singapore where they find themselves displaced in a short period of time by the country’s mix of the familiar and unfamiliar, predictable and unpredictable. When Nina loses her smartphone, she ventures out to explore a new side of the city, discovering new sides of herself in the process.

Miyazaki’s third feature is an ambitious blend of styles and formats, combining narrative fiction and documentary techniques alongside Youtube travel vlog aesthetics and Snapchat filters to craft an incredibly unique portrait of modern life. The immediacy of Miyazaki’s borderline-guerrilla shooting style cuts to the heart of the alienation, excitement, apprehensions, and consumer curiosities one feels when dropped into a new setting.

DAISUKE MIYAZAKI SHORT FILMS PROGRAM
dir. Daisuke Miyazaki, 2021-22
Japan. 88 min.
In Japanese with English subtitles.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 5 – 3 PM
FRIDAY, AUGUST 11 – 5 PM
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, AUGUST 21 – 7:30 PM

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A collection of recent short film works by Daisuke Miyazaki. The program will include the following works: