Whatever I expected The Brother from Another Planet to be, this wasn't it. John Sayles's quirky sci-fi drama about a mute three-toed alien who lands in Ellis Island and goes on to explore the neighbourhood of Harlem moves to the beat of its own drum. It harks back to the aesthetic of 70s blaxploitation, subverting the stereotypes but not in a way that leaves you feeling like you've been hit over the head with a bunch of socio-political messaging. It's clearly an analogue for slavery, with The Brother fleeing a couple of MIB (one played by Sayles himself) and a slave-trading elite on his home planet, but reflects on the black experience of America without getting preachy about it.

It's…

I truly adore this reductive, clear-eyed, and ultimately rather soft exploration of racism through lo-fi social science fiction. People will tell you that it’s clunky, people will tell you that it’s top heavy with the weight of its messaging, people will tell you it’s obviously written & directed by a well-meaning white guy. Those people are right.

But there is charm in its low budget clunk. There is authenticity in its obvious messaging. And there are black performers here - not the least of which is the extraordinary Joe Morton - who are given lots and lots of time in front of the camera to be whoever they feel their characters need to be, because that’s the John Sayles way -…

"Funny-looking motherfucker—but he can shoot, can't he?"

A downmarket E.T. that's less cloying though just as self-congratulatory, John Sayles' can't-we-all-get-along allegory The Brother from Another Planet chronicles the adventures of the Brother (Joe Morton)—a Black fugitive alien slave—after he crash-lands near Ellis Island. Once earthbound, the Brother divides his time between evading a pair of proto-Men in Black deadpan bounty hunters posing as immigration officials (David Strathairn and Sayles himself), solving the drug epidemic by shaming one venal white executive at a time, and trying to catch the eye of a foxy nightclub singer. Aside from his extraterrestrial status, the Brother has a number of intriguing qualities. For instance, he understands human languages yet cannot speak; he can however regenerate severed…

In a film whose concept feels so big — a Black, nameless alien (Joe Morton) falling down to earth — it’s the little moments that surprisingly matter most in “The Brother from Another Planet.” This pro-immigrant film, which can now be read as a fervent anti-ICE picture by contemporary viewers, mostly exists in two locations: Ellis island and Harlem. 

While the former location, as evinced by the swirling, sharp sound design that sees this extraterrestrial being hearing the voices of past migrants and refugees, is well known as a terminus for weary travelers. Harlem, primarily via its historical significance as an epicenter of Black culture cultivated by the Underground Railroad and the Great Migration — though it was also a…

Collab with Ziglet: avid Sayles aficionado, and a fine fellow indeed. Read his superb review here.

My third Sayles, and while it is a step down, it’s a small one. Perhaps I was spoiled starting with the singular Lone Star and the truly fascinating Limbo, both of which would arrive well over a decade after this, and, although they were still shot on relatively svelt budgets ‘Brother’ makes both movies look like Hollywood blockbusterish productions, and Sayles’ creative refinement is not quite what it’d become—both aesthetically and thematically—with that pair of later works. Still, while short on nuance and gloss, ‘Brother’ manages to function as well as it does precisely because of its shoestring allowance and lack of complexity. There is…

Collabin' with the all-time great Jerry!!! Bout time we did one of these together 😎 He has been on a Sayles quest and I wanted to return to this one. So here we are! Everyone read his awesome prose!

________________________

The first visuals are a meager red blip on a radar system. The blip flashes for a second before flitting across the screen. This movement, the very first that incorporates direction, initiates the theme of John Sayles' parable of immigration. The blip moves from Left to Right, aka East to West. This is the pattern that addresses assimilation more broadly. The Brother From Another Planet is an abundance of horizontal movement patterns that support Sayles’ tangible political theme yet goes a step…

I remember catching John Sayles' The Brother from Another Planet back in the 80’s, and being thoroughly charmed by it’s silent, three toed, protagonist, It’s blacksplotation trappings, and rather obvious allusion to immigration and overtones of the Christ story. When we stumbled across it on Netflix the other night ( my wife, who hadn’t seen it, made the suggestion ), I was a bit worried about tarnishing a sweet memory.

What came flooding back, though, is Sayles' wonderful ease with dialogue; which makes it particularly winsome, as the central character is mute. There isn’t dialogue; in its place Sales crafts captivating and often dryly hilarious speeches. Each character an orator standing on speaker’s corner, going on for anyone who will…

1) Not a big fan of the whole 'underrated' actor thing - that being said, Joe Morton - terrific body of work for an actor, and he's REALLY good here, with a performance that could come off as a gimmick, but doesn't.

2) John Sayles playing with roots in genre--this is one of those films that's clearly made by someone with a love of pulp SF, but also with an interest in using the tropes and trappings for what they can say about the real world, rather than just tell the 900th variation on the same 'bug eyed alien lost in New York City' story- the end result feeling pretty solid as a balance between something appreciating the genre and…