Who is H.R. Giger?
First thing that pops into most people’s minds is that he’s the guy that designed the alien from Alien. He’s worked on other films (Species, Poltergeist II) but that is the big one. Some people may know him from his exceptional art work that has appeared on album covers and movie posters. Beautiful airbrushed pieces capturing a dark sexuality in a style he made popular called Biomechanical art. There may even be a small percentage of you that know him as the guy that made the microphone stand for the lead singer of the band Korn. Not sure of those people actually exist but it’s possible.
And then there is that small percentage that may not know him at all. Hell, I work with a woman who didn’t know who Fleetwood Mac was until I hit her over the head with my shoe and played her Rumors on her i Phone.
The new documentary Dark Star: H.R Giger’s World does an apt job at presenting you the facts. You will see the young Giger struggle and find his way. You will hear stories of the loves in life. You will find out why Hollywood beckoned, changing his life and making him an international success. You will meet his current assistant who plays in a Swiss Death Metal band and needs his own documentary that would surely rival This is Spinal Tap in its laugh count. Dude is a quirky dude.
The movie shows how much the man is admired in his home country of Switzerland. We see him go to conventions and sign objects for a heavily tattooed fan base. We see that his staff respects and loves him. We see his home and realize that at any minute the film could have turned into a celebrity edition of the show Hoarders. There is ample footage of stacks of crap everywhere as the aging genius feebly makes his way through the piles of books and sketches.
Director Belinda Sallin has made a documentary that does a good job at presenting who H.R Giger is it completely fails at showing us WHY H.R. Giger is and that’s where the gold lies.
The most important question that is left untouched is “Why does everything have to be cocks and vaginas?” What happened to the man that makes him so fixated? This is true to the point that when he went to Hollywood to make the Alien creature he gave us a man lurking around with a penis on his head that shoots metal teeth out of the tip. They even open the film with a psychiatrist explaining some of Giger’s early work and he says very little about it. This is the elephant dick in the room and it is ignored.
There is also some interesting facts brushed over that would probably paint Giger in a more negative light than the film will allow. Why does his first wife commit suicide? Why is it ok that he leaves his second wife because she became ill and he wasn’t able to focus on his dick pics so he left her? These stories are merely stated and then we move on to more examples of how much he is admired.
Dark Star tells you the things it wants you to know. It is interesting for fans of the artist or, like myself, cinema fans in general because he did contribute some important work. But it is all fluff, focusing on a man known for his darkness but not telling you why the darkness exists.
