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Yesterday, I got to see a movie which had hitherto passed completely below my radar... IT COULDN'T HAPPEN HERE (1987), a feature-length vanity vehicle for British pop duo The Pet Shop Boys, directed by surrealist filmmaker and Salvador Dalí collaborator Jack Bond. It's easy enough to see why the movie flopped at the box-office after a very brief theatrical release, and then disappeared into obscurity --- it's an out-and-out piece of existentialism that might best be described as 'a temporal odyssey', employing a non-linear construction of time which confounds any attempt to follow or make sense of the narrative in a chronological fashion. Actually, I enjoyed the film quite a bit, even though its endless self-referentiality and self-awareness make it about as subtle in its approach as a blow from a sledgehammer.

One of the things I certainly hadn't anticipated was the presence of various horror-esque elements in the film, including not only a show-stealing performance by Joss Ackland as a serial-killing priest, but also... a sinister ventriloquist's dummy with a life of its own, which plays a key role in the movie as the only character to truly grasp the construction of time as a non-linear concept (!!!). It's a pretty impressive dummy, with a wide array of facial expressions, including the most flexible eyebrows I think I've ever seen on a movie dummy; not to mention that it also appears to be responsible for a train derailment that leaves many dead and injured. The ventriloquist, meanwhile, is played by Gareth Hunt (best known as Gambit from The New Avengers), made up to resemble the dummy, and adding an air of uncertainty about who is in control of whom.

I've put together a three-and-a-half-minute compilation of some of the 'dummy highlights' from the movie, at the following link:
http://s65.photobucket.com/albums/h214/rojaki/?action=view&current=itcouldnt.flv

And below are a selection of screen captures, starting with Gareth Hunt as the ventriloquist. The latter captures are intended to show off the dummy's ability to wink, raise its eyebrows, etc. Truly, I wasn't expecting anything so impressive from such an obscurity; but it's really worth seeking out imho, if you're in the mood for a surreal experience!