The Brother from Another Planet (1984)

A very intelligent and heartwarming movie. Sure it has it's comical moments but I could hardly laugh because I kept feeling sorry for the mute alien - he had no idea what was happening sometimes but he does learn fast. The movie is funny yet sad at the same time.Example of what I mean by funny yet sad: He's hungry and grabs a pear to eat, the store clerk gets upset grabs the pear from him and fusses at him, she then waits on a customer, the aliens see that money was handed to the cashier for pears, so the alien ends up opening the cash register to get money to give to the cashier for some pears. Of course she thinks he was stealing and all he tried to do was to give her money for pears. That's funny but it's also very sad to me... he was hungry and but didn't have a clue about money.During the whole course of the film, my heart kept going out to our mute alien. Sure I got some giggle from the movie but I kept feeling sorry for him - like I wanted to grab him and teach him things from our planet and to protect him. LOL.This is a good movie with some comical moments, some very sad moments and, I guess you can say, a lesson to teach us about our own society (from immigration to drugs).7/10

A black skinned alien, who doesn't utter a single word yet understands what others are saying, crashlands in Harlem. He meets various people, such as some quirky, interesting black characters in a bar setting who would befriend him even though he doesn't say anything to them. He often sits or looks on as people just chat away. He has gifted abilities such as his touch being able to repair equipment magically, the way his right eye can be removed and used as an image recording device, can heal wounds, or how anything solid object he embraces with his touch can speak from the noise of a past incident. In Harlem, he's introduced to racism, poverty, lust, drugs, crime, sex, among other things as two alien "police"(played by director Sayles and his frequent actor David Strathairn)are trying to locate his whereabouts so they can "haul him in." The film show our alien's particular interest in two tragic dope-pushers(..and abusers)and how their plight might result from wealthy uptown types. I think ultimately, the film is a candid fish-out-of-water view of Harlem's plight from a babe's point-of-view.Introspective tale regarding Harlem and how it is viewed by many( a beat cop who chats with our alien, two white men from Indiana who get lost, etc). I thought the film was on target using comedy as an avenue to expose what had happened to Harlem over the years. Particularly interesting is listening to the men in the bar as they often are our real insight into how Halrem has changed over the years. Joe Morton is really amazing because he has to be convincing without a line of dialogue. Having us believe he's from some other planet is not the easiest task, but it's a credit to the actor and his director that this flick accomplishes it. Just a brilliant indie from acclaimed writer/director Sayles.

In what may have been John Sayles's most Hollywood-style movie - and I use that description loosely - an alien slave (Joe Morton) lands in Harlem and tries to escape two bounty hunters (the director and David Strathairn) from his planet. In the process, even though he can't talk, he starts fixing video-games (unintentionally, natch). It just goes to show that you don't need an exorbitant budget to make a good movie about extraterrestrial life. Maybe not Sayles's all-time masterpiece, but worth seeing, partly as a look at people's everyday lives. I'd recommend it.Make all the white people disappear. Yeah...

John Sayles film, The Brother From Another Planet, uses the arhcetypes of science fiction to examine the stunted evolution of history. His story stands as a character study of a alien slave who crash lands in earth's culture epic center of New York City. Through this window into the life of the ultimate foreigner Sayles analyzes the social barriers that segregate people culturally, these divisions stand as an allegory for slavery, paralleling the nature of history, positing that it does not repeat itself so much as it evolves into different manifestations. The starting point begins with "the brother" character running from intergalactic slave traders while assimilating into the American lifestyle (an attempt to start his new life and blend into the society around him), along his way he observes the supporting cast of everyday characters and learns that several societal institutions (immigration, the drug game, sex) are mutated tools of civil control. Sayles is interested in the construction and roots of these devices, the primary barrier between human rational and animal instinct, and begs the question, is it within are makeup as human beings to fear/control the differences between people or are we predisposed as animals to exercise a Darwinian ideology of the strong dominating the weak? From his film it seems to that he believes that latter, that although we can rationally say "people are people" we can not morally explain social injustices and that there is an automated response of "dog eat dog" that restricts history from changing. While Sayles is strong in his assertions, the end of his film leaves the audience with a resolution that the subservient can only offer survive in their convictions, the just will be rewarded in their brotherhood and imperial control is fleeting/incapable to separate the plight of the many.