Synopsis
Sun Ra and his Solar Myth Arkestra return to Earth after several years in space. Ra proclaims himself "the alter-destiny", meets with inner-city youths and battles with the devil himself to save the black race.
Space Is the Place
1974 Directed by John Coney
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Alternative Titles
Sun Ra & His Intergalactic Arkestra: Space Is the Place, Ο Σαν Ρα στο διάστημα, 스페이스 이즈 더 플레이스, 太空即地点
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Theatrical
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USA
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USA
01 Nov 1974
- Theatrical
Popular reviews
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when i was a kid i loved space, which meant i loved NASA; i mailed away for their free info pamphlets and kept a big yellow folder of astronaut photos & rocket/shuttle blueprints, doodling their (old, good) logo on everything i owned. the cold war was over & i thought the apollo program was a great human achievement, not a bunch of repatriated nazis enacting cold-war revenge on the commies for killing hitler. when i got into rap > soul > jazz >into afrofuturism i learned that the first black person in space was arnaldo tamayo mendez, an afro-cuban cosmonaut who took soyuz 38 to salyut 6, not anybody from NASA's amerikkka. living in the post-9/11 death march of the military-industrial complex that launched…
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though i treasure the ideology (only because i apply and mould the fabric of its core concepts to suit my own beliefs, as every Black person should), 'afrofuturism' was a term coined by a white man and that undermines whatever emancipatory impact it tries to have by fetishizing the mere relation between Blacks and technology, implying there's something magnificent to the idea of niggas building spaceships. white people need to understand that the whole reason this shit is even still around is for niggas to GET AWAY from them so it's best to keep it out they goddamn mouths. i recently read not just one but multiple reviews alluding mcqueen's education (in which his lens is fixated upon the struggles…
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I've wanted to check out Space is the Place ever since I got into Sun Ra's music in my early twenties. I had pretty high expectations going into it, and honestly, they were met. It's just an absolute fever dream of a movie. I wish that every b-movie could be this much fun. I watched it with Adrian and we had a great time.
Insanity in the best possible way.
By the way, I can only hope that if I ever get abducted by extraterrestrial beings that it's going to be by Sun Ra and not by one of those little grey dudes with the big black eyes. Ra is infinitely cooler and he is also a much snappier dresser.
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"So it's farewell."
We very recently lost Nwoye, one of the most passionate and vital writers on this site, someone not only with a distinct voice but an understanding of the importance of the community here, and sharing that voice with others.
I can't be sure if it's the case, but I think it was immediately after coming across his review for this film that I followed him, and he followed back soon after. I was delighted when he would pop up in my comments, whether it be to start a discussion or simply say something kind. I was caught off guard when he reached out to me with an invitation to join his discord server - we hadn't interacted…
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Maybe it's the presence of Christopher Brooks or the way that Sun Ra and his Arkestra manage to smuggle serious social messages under a delirious genre hook, but I'm at least half-convinced this was made by Fredric Hobbs under a pseudonym.
This was clearly made in its own little bubble -- really, I've never seen anything else quite like it -- but I do love just how much it feels spiritually connected to the queer San Francisco underground circles that were birthing weirdo midnight movies like Thundercrack!, Elevator Girls in Bondage, and Luminous Procuress right around the same time.
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After watching this amazing whatsit mashup of Sun Ra's Berkeley lectures, concert performance, no budget sci-fi, conspiracy thriller, blaxploitation action, and Bay Area docudrama, I want magick jazz aliens to use the freeing power of music to teleport me from this stupid rock to a spaceship bound for a better galaxy. ABDUCT ME!!!!!!
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I guess one could say that this was out of this world? 🌚
But damn am I impressed by this surrealist piece of content. There is so much to take away from this blend between blaxploitation and technology. One of my biggest take aways was how Sun RA exposes the overseer as a toxic form of leadership in the black community. The Overseer presents himself as someone who wants to lead his people to a place or empowerment. But really, he is nothing more than someone who is the byproduct of the whiteness lens white people views black people through. He is the misogynistic and controlling man that is now the tool that strengthens the white establishments hold on black… -
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- I've always loved Space Is the Place, it's just the perfect fusion of trashy exploitation film-making and earnest esoteric belief. The wonderful cinematic realisation of Sun Ra's afro-futurist shtick coupled with a 50's sci-fi aesthetic really is out of this world.
- I see it first and foremost as an exploitation film best appreciated with an awareness of context and not taken entirely seriously, located somewhere left-field of much of the Blaxploitation cinema released during the same period. I probably found this easier to do when I saw it for the first time over ten years ago. Not so much in 2014. There are aspects of Ra's message here that were fucked up at the time of its initial…
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Gotta be honest I didn’t expect anything from this movie but I definitely didn’t expect the first descriptor to come to mind while watching this to be “Kirbyesque”
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Sun Ra staging his own creation myth in which he plays piano so righteously it causes a riot in a nightclub.
