THE APPLE (1980)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
I do admire musicals with eccentricity written all over them. For the uninitiated, I do not mean "The Sound of Music" or straight-as-an-arrow animated classics like "The Lion King." I am talking about "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and, naturally, the wild shenanigans of "The Apple." "The Apple," for all its dissenters and vocal critics who grant it the status of a "good bad movie," is actually a kinetic, supremely watchable and Biblically-themed sci-fi musical, the likes of which not even "Rocky Horror" could muster.
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| Catherine Mary Stewart and George Gilmour in "The Apple" |
It is 1994 and the Worldvision Song Festival, a sort of early precursor to "American Idol," is looking for hot talent - the kind that can make the targeted audiences' heartbeats literally increase to the magic number, 150. There is a discotheque music group with a dash of hard rock thrown in called BIM that inspires the audience - in actuality, it is all programmed to be consumed by the average person. After BIM performs, a young folksy couple named Alphie and Bibi (George Gilmour, Catherine Mary Stewart in her film debut) sing about love in strains equal to Peter, Paul and Mary and the audience loves it more but Mr. Boogalow (Vladek Sheybal) can't allow that. To backtrack, the movie is set in a future where Mr. Boogalow controls and owns everything - his ideal world is one of temptation, sin and pure glitzy musical numbers. This place (looking a little like West Germany which is where it was filmed) is where BIM stickers shaped like pyramids (New World Order, indeed) are required to be worn by all citizens to control them, where the aging 60's hippies are forced to live in caves, and where a multilingual music promoter like Boogalow can have a group sell records before any recording takes place. Alphie and Bibi are the new recording stars, forced to sign contracts where they sing songs about drugs and uninhibited sexual pleasure. Alphie wants none of this, hoping to score as a love song poet but he is continually rejected. It is implied that love and peace, the latter being a word never uttered in this future, are prohibited - just sell yourself and your body for pleasure. Oh, also, do not eat from the apple.
Not all of "The Apple" makes sense - why does Boogalow give Alphie and Bibi a chance when all they sing about is love? I guess it is to show that the Satanic Boogalow can convert Bibi into some sort of hard rock/disco singer but the songs BIM sings and the ones Bibi covers couldn't be more different - Bibi's "Speed" song serves as satire of America's addiction to consumerism. Would such an Orwellian police state allow such a song? I should think not. Still, despite the film's reputation as an awful musical with cult potential since its inception, I truly enjoyed "The Apple." A sci-fi, supernatural Faustian tale of excess set in a police state with definite Biblical overtones is certainly not the norm, especially one that features The Rapture. The cast performs these songs with gusto (Baby-faced Catherine Mary Stewart's voice was dubbed) - there is also an unbridled and threatening spirit to the film. The future seen in "The Apple" is one of a Satanic cabaret infused with pre-programmed and restrictive music, thus not allowing for free thought. Life is nothing but show business in 1994.
