Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969)

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The idea that Anger might be messing with dangerous forces here, and roping the viewer (without asking) into a dark ritual, is cool. The soundtrack is not like anything else I've heard, perfect for trance induction. And who cares what one thinks of Anger's preoccupations (and possible problems)? Just to witness them in such an overt display is fascinating - the murky deep end of confessional art. Ugly, messy. Upsetting. And so refreshing now amid so much commercialism, safety, and p.c. nothingness. Featuring: an albino, a future murderer, drug use, male nudity, cat parts, the U.S. military in Vietnam, Nazi symbolism, and a lineup from the Church of Satan.

This has to be one of Kenneth Anger's worst films, which is especially bad as this is not one of the movies that he shot way before his 20th birthday, but instead here in 1970 he was already in his 40s. It tries to be edgy, shocking and controversial during its 12 minutes runtime from start to finish, but sadly forgets to make any reasonable impact. Just shock as much as possible and who cares about the story? Then again, this has frequently been a problem for Anger that he goes too much for style and too little for substance. In here are included the Rolling Stones, the Hell's Angels, Lucifer, the devil, sex between men, male genitalia etc., so basically everything that could infuriate audiences almost 50 years ago. I cannot say I enjoyed this at all. Not recommended. Anger (who also acts in here, not too often the case in his works) was never among my favorites, but he is really hitting new lows here. The audio gets annoying pretty quickly too, but I guess that was intended. Stay away.

I have to say that in this particular Anger short, I was much more interested in the early synthesizer score by Mick Jagger than I was for Anger's straight-up Satanic imagery. That said, the Satanism and occult nature of this short is important because it's basically a testimonial to various ways in which this imagery has continued to subsist in the imagination of our culture. Images of Satanism and witchcraft, occult and ritual pepper film history from Haxan to the present day, especially in experimental and alternative film-making. There are many experimental short films that could be understood basically as a direct response, reproduction, or return to Kenneth Anger's particular vision. The theatrics of Satanism is compelling because of way it's practiced or imagined to be practiced, in the same way that the Carnivalesque references that need in humanity to mock and subvert through caricature and clowning. Mick Jagger's cooperation in this, and the Rolling Stones concert imagery (I'm assuming "My Demon Brother" refers to Jagger, but I could be wrong) is a winking allegory to the reputation Jagger started to have in the fears and anxieties of 1960s parents and the continual shadow of Altamont over their career (a Hell's Angels jacket appears, plus references to a dead cat that could easily be a stand-in for the murdered audience member as well as fill in the form of animal sacrifice popularly believed is involved in Satanic ritual).Meanwhile, it's not as if the short itself is completely serious. At one point a doll rolls down a staircase with a sign attached to it that says "Oops you're pregnant! That's witchcraft!" The earlier part of the movie is a simple reaction shot structure where a strange blond (almost albino) man looks around and sees naked men lounging around, almost in reference to the effeminate Jagger--a reference that comes back with the swaying hips of one man in something like quadruple-exposure, etc. The whole thing is almost too playful, with demons literally dressed in red-faced costumes and plastic horns on their heads, and random dogs laying around watching what's going on with detached animal interest.However, it is engaged cinema, and Anger is still pointing to some of his fascinations with the darker undertones of all humanity and their shifting perspectives and contexts. Nazi imagery shows up, this time closer referencing the original form of the swastika that the Nazis reappropriated for their own use. A hooded congregation leader looks like the high priest of a KKK group, followed by people who are obviously not KKK members. Birth and death are purposefully confused. Bubbling, boiling imagery is mixed with multiple-exposure imagery (Anger is always fond of pointing out that film is a chemical process, like alchemy) and kaliedoscopic imagery to reference bodies and forms as malleable things. Fire destroys it all in the end anyway.--PolarisDiB

I disagree with the comment that angers film is amateurish and boring. what you have to keep in mind is that is was made in 1969 on a shoestring budget. also that the whole MTV aesthetic was not even thought of then, and it would take 30 years until the way Anger does film would be incorporated into the mainstream music videos of acts like Nine inch nails,Marilyn Manson, etc.The use of juxtaposing sound and film, editing them in a way that creates maximum contrast and dynamic is something every video director - directly or indirectly - has gotten from Anger. he was the first to fuse rock music and experimental films, thereby by accident creating the seed of the rock video.Angers short films -and especially this one - has probably been more important in shaping pop and art culture than any other single short film. for that he deserves credit and recognition.