Synopsis
Six people find a mysterious mark in the center of their left hand and all independently go to Easter Island in hopes to uncover the mystery.
The Suns of Easter Island
1972 ‘Les Soleils de l'île de Pâques’ Directed by Pierre Kast
Cast
Director
Producer
Writer
Editor
Cinematography
Art Direction
Composer
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Primary Language
Spoken Languages
Alternative Title
Les Soleils de l'île de Pâques
Genres
Releases by Date
Premiere
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France
Cannes Film Festival
Theatrical
23 Aug 1972
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France
Releases by Country
France
01 May 1972
- Premiere Cannes Film Festival
23 Aug 1972
- Theatrical
Popular reviews
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This subtle brand of metaphysical sci-fi is a rare jewel. Those dealing with kind of a hallucinatory collective conscious that rides the line of psychedelic and extra-terrestrial perfectly. I need more movies like this in my life, but I'm happy to have stumbled upon the one.
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I guess I've watched this over 7 or 8 times - maybe more. I've already given my thoughts on it before but I'm still wowed by it and I couldn't tell you why. There's just something so precisely mathematical about everything in this film that appeals. The austere beauty of Easter Island itself. It fits the timeframe of films of well-off hippies go off on an exotic journey and find themselves but messing around with it slightly (throw a sci-fi angle in and add in some politics).
This film isn't for everybody but for those that love it - savour it!
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With its ambiguous tone, metaphysical slant and use of stunning landscapes to evoke unease, I couldn't help but be reminded of Peter Weir's adaption of Picnic At Hanging Rock; the two would make an excellent double-feature, though this is very much a unique and compelling piece in its own right.
The film's numerical motifs and references to geomancy also felt like a spiritual predecessor to Boards Of Canada's album Geogaddi and certainly evoked the same feeling of nature as being uncanny in my mind. An eerie, understated gem.
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Exactly the right film for me at this time. Contains ESP, mystic visions of suffering presented with rapid fire editing, a 1970s synth/experimental electronic music score, a journey into a cave, documentary or maybe essay film style narration from one of the characters. Repeating what others have said in the limited reviews here but definitely one for fans of August in the Water. Also maybe The Holy Mountain, I've got no time for that film now but this I'd revisit.
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“The Suns of Easter Island” feels more in the vein of Kubrick than it does Tarkovsky; it’s a very detached and cold and remote film that explores the idea of unity through an unexplained force: a shiny mark appears on their left hand and showcases them images of destruction – the injustice for people abandoned by their society, wars stripping innocence of peace, death and destruction, life lingering by a thread. The visual flair of this film is intoxicating, enriching, and trippy: these images only enhance the discomfort.
Its atmosphere is very isolating – it helps that the film takes place on the eventual Easter Islands, which feels so lonely and chilling and mysterious – and it’s only when do…
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De la science-fiction occulte avec des hallucinations cosmique, de la géomancie, des discussions sur l'astrologie, des extra-terrestres qui sont juste des boules de lumière flottantes et de l'émerveillement devant des panneaux solaires le tout enrobé dans un style de film d'auteur minimaliste.
Ça me fait penser aux cassettes Beta (!) sur les mystères du triangle des Bermudes qu'avait mon père, et aux vieux romans cheap de science-fiction français où il y a zéro action mais juste des intellectuels qui déterrent des secrets anciens de l'humanité et des traces extra-terrestres.
Je croise ce genre d'ambiance vieillot rarement au cinéma, et ça me plaît pas mal (J'aime pas l'occulte sauf dans le contexte de la fiction, où ça prend tout à coup…
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L'île de Pâques, on dirait un lieu où il y aurait eu un happening de sculpteurs primitivistes latino-américains. Le vernissage se serait mal passé.
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Goes a little slack in the middle before the actual arrival on Easter Island and man I really could've done without the montage of real dead body photos but aside from that: this is a pretty bewitching slice of French new age psychedelia-adjacent sci-fi, given a major boost in the third act by how incredible of a location Easter Island is (I always forget how many statues there are! A lot!)
Also I found this enjoyably devoted to the process of deciphering meaning out of inscrutable texts and structures, like if the poem decoding stuff from Rivette's Out 1 was the whole movie - great stuff!
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Desperately wanted to be wowed here with this one....had unfairly assigned it so much hype..... was expecting an August In The Water-type revelatory experience. Didn’t get it
Strong on exposition & ideas, unfortunately very humdrum & uninspired in just about every other category. The acting is especially putrid, and there is not one single likable character. The cinematography is drab, and the overall aesthetic of the film resembles any 70s soap-opera level production. Which could have conceivably worked toward the film’s favour, but again: the borderline-abhorrent acting & cringe-tier, almost embarrassing character outlines
Having said all of that, Suns Of Easter Island still (barely) ranks as a Precious Gem; some glorious photography, highlighting one of the (real) epicentres/powerbases on Planet Earth (I strongly…
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Pompous, esoteric, hauntological Eurogash of the highest calibre. Equal parts HOLY MOUNTAIN, UNDERSEA WORLD OF JACQUES COUSTEAU, CHARIOTS OF THE GODS, Belbury Poly and the Men's and Women's fashion pages of the 1972 Great Universal catalogue...
but for some reason everyone would rather write fawning tripe about how good ARRIVAL is. -
this has a lot of things in it i do like (the idea of connected conspiracies, cult scifi, some procedural stuff here and there) but it doesn't quite come together as cohesively as it should for me. i really like the science fiction stuff here as opposed to the more exposition based explanations of the characters and their individual goals but hey it's a cool film and i'm sure people would be passionate about it.