Memory: The Origins of Alien review – entertaining but unfocused love letter

The enigmatic title of Alexandre O. Philippe’s new documentary is a reference to an early version of Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic: an unfinished script by writer Dan O’Bannon called “Memory” that had a group of space explorers landing on a strange planet only to find their memories slipping away. The irony, of course, is that “Memory” paved the way for Alien, a film so groundbreaking and influential it has since proven impossible to forget.

Anyone who got a kick out of Philippe’s meticulous deep dive into Psycho‘s infamous shower scene in his acclaimed documentary, 78/52, is sure to find this journey into the birth of Alien just as absorbing, though there’s a sense here that he might have been better off emulating that film’s singular fixation as this one ultimately fails to find a cohesive thread.

Highly entertaining in spite of its scattershot nature, Memory: The Origins of Alien begins by arguing that Alien is essentially a modern myth: having drawn inspiration from the Greeks and the Egyptians, not to mention insects, comic books, and Christianity, Phillipe suggests Alien – in its final form – is the result of an unconscious collaborative effort spanning thousands of years. Later, Memory takes the form of a more conventional making-of feature – one that’s heavy on the influence of both Dan O’Bannon and artist H.G. Giger, who – along with Scott – are credited as Alien‘s Holy Trinity.

Right off the bat, Phillipe presents us with the idea that all films are a product of the time in which they were made, and much of Memory is devoted to unearthing the cultural context lurking beneath Alien‘s surface. A multitude of theories – some loftier than others – are laid out to support this, backed by talking heads from producers, actors, and historians (Scott remains absent, presumably because he’s sick of talking about it). By the time Alien has been argued as an analogy for the Vietnam war, a response to the Ted Bundy murders, and as an exploration of the exploitation of blue collar workers, though, you might begin to wonder if there’s an allegory out there that Phillipe won’t give credence to.

Nothing here seems quite as revelatory as you’d expect for a film billed as “the untold story,” either; at times it even feels like Phillipe believes he’s the first filmmaker to realise that the art from the past informs the art of the future. Well, duh. That doesn’t mean it isn’t fun to comb through the various inspirations: everything from Dark Star to the movies of Robert Altman are thrown up for consideration, clips of which are contrasted with Scott’s film using neat split screen comparisons. And yet as the film hits the halfway mark and shifts focus almost exclusively to the infamous Chestburster scene, you can’t help but wonder whether a riskier and more interesting film would have built itself entirely around that seminal moment of horror.

Still, the wide and varied discourse that surrounds Alien has ensured its long life, and Phillipe’s film manages to present some interesting ideas in a package that’s never anything but passionate and affable – even if by the end it feels like a glorified making-of documentary you’d find on a collector’s edition DVD. Paradoxically, Memory‘s greatest achievement is probably also its biggest downfall: it evokes the genius of Alien to such an extent it might have you wishing you were simply watching that film instead.

★★★☆☆

By: Tom Barnard

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