''Box Head Revolution'' is a 2002

black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

science fiction film Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses Speculative fiction, speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as Extraterrestrial life in fiction, extraterrestria ...

, directed, produced, edited and co-written by Mark L Christensen.

Plot

On an unknown planet in an uncertain time, a two-tiered society has taken shape. The

ruling class In sociology, the ruling class of a society is the social class who set and decide the political and economic agenda of society. In Marxist philosophy, the ruling class are the class who own the means of production in a given society and apply ...

live above ground and wear masks on their faces, while the

working class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...

labors below the surface of the planet. The lowest order of the

underground culture Underground culture, or simply underground, is a term to describe various alternative cultures which either consider themselves different from the mainstream of society and culture, or are considered so by others. The word "underground" is used ...

– prisoners, revolutionaries and various troublemakers – are forced to wear boxes locked around their heads. One day, an alien craft crashes on the planet. Gritt (Adom Cooper) and Brythle (Jenny Kim), a pair of rebellious young lovers from the upper tier of the planet's society, discover the wreckage. Unknown to them, the wreckage is a

Voyager program The Voyager program is an American scientific program that employs two interstellar probes, ''Voyager 1'' and ''Voyager 2''. They were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a favorable planetary alignment to explore the two gas giants Jupiter ...

space craft that was launched from the United States. in the 1970s. Within the wreckage is a long-playing gold album featuring

rock music Rock is a Music genre, genre of popular music that originated in the United States as "rock and roll" in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of styles from the mid-1960s, primarily in the United States and the United Kingdo ...

of the 1970s. Despite the efforts of the ruling class to destroy this album, the young lovers are able to broadcast the music to the planet's oppressed masses. With this musical discovery, the planet faces a sudden and unstoppable turn of events that brings about the eponymous

uprising Rebellion is an uprising that resists and is organized against one's government. A rebel is a person who engages in a rebellion. A rebel group is a consciously coordinated group that seeks to gain political control over an entire state or a ...

.New York Times review
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Production and reception

''Box Head Revolution'' was the filmmaking debut of Mark Christensen, who was a dancer, a pilot, a two time world champion skateboarder, One of the first innovators of the Snow Board, and a musician before turning to cinema production. In the film’s press notes, he stated he turned to filmmaking because he felt "it would be easier to communicate his ideas through film rather than struggling with a song. " ''Box Head Revolution'' was shot on a very low budget in black-and-white 16 millimeter film, and the cinematography was intentionally out of focus.

Dave Kehr David Kehr (born 1953) is an American museum curator and film critic. For many years a critic at the ''Chicago Reader'' and the ''Chicago Tribune,'' he later wrote a weekly column for ''The New York Times'' on DVD releases. He later became a c ...

, reviewing the film for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' noted, “Mr. Christensen's use of very blurry black-and-white video serves a double purpose. It disguises the complete absence of sets while lending the film the quality of decaying contraband from the indefinite past.” ''Box Head Revolution'' had its theatrical premiere in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

on August 21, 2002, and reviews were mixed. Edward Havens, writing for the online magazine FilmJerk.com, stated the film "is the most audacious directorial debut to invade American cinemas in a very long time. It's not the best film debut, nor the best looking or most intelligent. And the funny thing is, after watching the film, I don't think Mr. Christensen cares if you like it or not." David Sterritt, reviewing the film for ''

The Christian Science Monitor ''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles both in Electronic publishing, electronic format and a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 ...

'', commented that the film's "story is almost incoherent, but there's a weirded-out charm to Christensen's visual style – part

German Expressionism Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radi ...

, part '

Captain Video Captain Video may refer to: *Captain Video and His Video Rangers, an American science fiction television series *'' Captain Video'', a 1981 jazz album by pianist Andy LaVerne *"Captain Video", a nickname for baseball player Tony Gwynn *"Captain Vide ...

,' part early

David Lynch David Keith Lynch (January 20, 1946 – January 16, 2025) was an American filmmaker, visual artist, musician, and actor. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Lynch was often called a "visionary" and received acclaim f ...

– all as hazy as a half-remembered dream." But Ken Fox, writing for

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...

Online, noted: "The onscreen text is riddled with typos, the migraine-inducing B&W photography is often over-exposed and out of focus, the post-synchronized sound is badly looped and Christensen himself can be heard directing his actors. Adventurous — and forgiving — lovers of strange celluloid could do worse. Others will no doubt find the whole experience the longest 76 minutes of their lives." And Shaun Sages, writing for the Movie Navigator online site, found the film to be "weirder than anything you’ll stumble upon watching 4 a.m. Sci Fi Channel programming."Movie Navigator review
To date, ''Box Head Revolution'' has not been commercially released on DVD.

References

External links

* {{official website, https://web.archive.org/web/20080121144149/http://www.filmcrash.com:80/mattpages/boxhead.html, Box Head Revolution
''Box Head Revolution'' in the Internet Movie Database
2002 films 2002 science fiction films 2000s dystopian films American black-and-white films American rock music films Films about revolutions Films about social class Films set on fictional planets 2000s English-language films 2000s American films English-language science fiction films