LUCKY PEOPLE CENTER INTERNATIONAL

Director Johan Söderberg / 1998 / Sweden

Lucky People Center was originally an illegal Swedish nightclub in the late 1980s. The collective involved moved into film and music production, and eventually live performance. As a culmination of their many-faceted career, Lucky People Center International, the film, casts a wide net to haul in themes of spiritual renewal and the embrace of the strange. With precursors like Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi (1983) and Powaqqatsi (1988), Lucky People Center International combines glorious widescreen photography from exotic locales with a puls­ing score of deep dub and abstract eleclronica grooves. Broadly examining spirituality at the close of the millennium, the film takes in every major faith and a slew of bizarre practices and fringe cults. Frightening footage of Heaven's Gate, the black Nike cult, taken from their in-house propaganda videos, sits alongside contorted Indian Yogis, extreme sports enthusiasts, post-pom star Annie Sprinkle and a troupe of Maori warriors chanting about the evils of credit cards. Tokyo banker Toshiji Mikawa moonlights as an experimental performance artist blasting total noise into the night before donning an Armani suit for another day of international finance. From techno to high technology, from trance music to spiritu­al transcendence, Lucky People Cenler International is a rich conglomerate ol fresh ideas and eclectic sounds.

Back To Index