SPIRITS OF THE AIR, GREMLINS OF THE CLOUDS (1989)
Label: Umbrella Entertainment
Region Code: Region-FREE
Duration: 96 Minutes
Rating: M
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0, 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.33:1)
Director: Alex Proyas
Cast: Michael Lake, Norman Boyd, Rhys Davis
Synopsis: Set against an overwhelming desert landscape, Felix (Michael Lake, Sweetie) and Betty Crabtree (Rhys Davis, Dead End Drive-In) are eccentric siblings living together in an isolated homestead in a post-apocalyptic era. Modern technology is absent, with wheels and gears operating a variety of broken devices to assist their struggle to survive. When they encounter a wandering stranger named Smith (Norman Boyd), their simple lives become tumultuous as the wheelchair-bound Felix dreams of flying and Betty believes their new arrival to be a demonic presence - the characters all yearning for escape but seemingly do not know how.
Long before he directed The Crow (1994) director Alex Proyas (Dark City) made this homegrown arthouse film, a post-apocalyptic slice of weirdness set in Australia. We're focused on a strange pair, we have Felix (Michael Lake) and his sister Betty Crabtree(Rhys Davis), they live an isolated life on the edge the desert near an impassable mountain chain. Tinkerer Felix is obsessed with creating a flying machine while his religious nut sister bows away on what looks to be a homemade stringed instrument. The siblings lives are temporarily interrupted by the arrival of a mysterious man in black, his name is Smith (Norman Boyd) and he's on the run from someone for reasons unknown, like everything else about the story things are vague and a bit ambiguous.
The stranger brings turmoil to the house, the sister is convinced Smith is a demon sent from Hell, but the wheelchair bound brother sees an opportunity, giving room and board to Smith, recruiting the able-bodied stranger to help him build his flying contraption, from which he hopes to escape to the other side of the cliffs to a better life. Smith has the urge to flee from his unknown pursuers but with no hope of making it over the cliffs on his own he stays around to help with the creation of the flying machine. The flick is surreal and oddball, it lacks narrative but settles into a tone, tapping into an arthouse aesthetic littered with religious imagery and bizarre animal totems. It's not the most enthralling story but I dig the visuals and tone, but I can see others failing to find it as interesting as I do.
Watching this film I was reminded of the 90's arthouse cinema that originally pulled me into alternative cinema, stuff like Delicatessen (1991), Toto le héros (1991), Dust Devil (1992) and Like Water For Chocolate (1992), if you're also into oddball indie cinema from this period I think you'll be pleased to have this one in your collection, it's very cool to see where Alex Proyas started out after seeing where he was able to go, even if his filmography tops out at Dark City for me.
Audio/Video: Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds (1989) debuts on region-FREE Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment via their Worlds On Film: Beyond Genres imprint, giving the film a new 2K scan from the original 16mm negative. The image looks solid, colors are vibrant, blacks are good, and the grain is well-managed. The clean-up looks good with very few instances of blemishes, and no obvious digital tinkering. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1 and 2.0 stereo, I preferred the 2.0 but the surround does enhance the excellent score from Peter Miller with some discreet use of the surrounds.
The disc comes with two audio commentaries, the first with Alex Proyas, the alternate with Composer Peter Miller and Editor Craig Woods, the Proyas track is incredibly detailed with stories about the production, the difficulty of the low budget shoot and how many of the surreal images were created. There's also a 2018 interview with Rhys Davis who speaks about her early career and a tiny but about the making of the film, where it was shot and her career afterward, ending on a story of how her finding a camel skull during the shoot lead to the production losing an expensive camera. I would have enjoyed it more if she talked about her ultra-religious character in the film though, but she doesn't, which is a shame, he was the most interesting character the movie.
Actor Michael Lake shows up for a half-hour plus interview, speaking about his early career and auditioning for the film, and shooting the low-budget movie and what that entailed, including the expectation of getting his takes in the first time around. He speaks fondly of the Peter Miller soundtrack that was composed for the film, and touching on Proyas post-Spirits music video career. He's very animated and comes off as quite a character, a good sort of meandering interview.
We also get a 24-min making of video diary shot in VHS in '86 during the making of the film, there's loads of fly-on-the-wall stuff, I liked it when they show the film being shot and then show you the finished final movie footage, and showing how some of the forced perspective shots were achieved. This is cat-nip for low-budget movie lovers who wonder how these impressive visuals were acheived.
Extras are buttoned-up with a 4-min music video for "Spirit Song" by Peter Miller with vocals from Karina Hayes, plus a 2018 trailer, and an image gallery which contains images of theatrical artwork, the soundtrack album, various home video releases, behind-the-scenes photography, conceptual artwork. There are a pair of Easter Eggs to be found, these include Alex Proyas' short film that aired on MTV 'Eyeball', it has a very Evil Dead/Sam Raimi vibe, there's also what looks to be be some unrestrored raw-footage of the film's opening credit sequence.
The single-disc release comes housed in an oversized Blu-ray case with a 2-sided sleeve of artwork, we get the original release artwork and a new illustration from Umbrella's Simon Sherry. As with the other Beyond Genre releases the wrap only features a logo on the spine, the slipcover contains the logo on the artwork, the release includes a slipcover with the same new artwork, both the slip and the wrap are numbered, this being number five of the Beyond Genres imprint.
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary with Director Alex Proyas
- Audio Commentary with Composer Peter Miller and Editor Craig Wood
- Interview with cast member Michael Lake (37 min)
- Interview with cast member Rhys Davis (8 min)
- Spirits: Making a Post-Apocalypse Western Featurette (24 min)
- 'Spirits Song' Music Video (4 min)
- Image Gallery (9 min)
- 2018 Trailer (2 min)
Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds (1989) gets a fine release from Umbrella Entertainment, the A/V is solid and the extras are very good. It may not my favorite release from the Beyond Genres imprint but in a way I think it is the one that embodies the spirit of what the imprint is all about, turning a kind light on an obscure slice of cult-cinema, it's definitely the most obscure of their titles to date. Fans of indie Australian cinema and director Alex Proyas should definitely check this out, a recommend for adventurous lovers of cult cinema.
