# Six Days in Roswell (1998)

### reviewed by
Murali Krishnan

    [3.0/4.0]

This film was screened at Cinequest 10, the San Jose film festival.

Human folklore has always contained references to mythical beings whose existence could never be rationally proven. At earlier times in history these beings were often woodland creatures and spiritual entities. In modern times, these have been replaced by extra-terrestrial beings and unidentified flying objects (UFO's). This film is a light-hearted exploration of an annual festival held in Roswell, New Mexico. The festival commemorates the supposed crash of an actual flying saucer containing intelligent creatures from another realm, which was covered up by the U.S. government. This film is a semi-documentary that examines the odd subculture that celebrates this modern folklore.

The structure of the film consist of one man traveling to Roswell to attend the festival, and his encounters with the many odd attendees. In concept, the film is similar to the recent Trekkies, and this not a coincidence. This film is produced by Roger Nygard, who directed Trekkies, and the correspondent/narrator is Rich Kronfeld, who was one of the "trekkies" presented in that film. This presents an odd role reversal for Kronfeld, who was one of the odd fans in Trekkies, but is the "sane" investigator in this film. Kronfeld executes his role perfectly, because although he is clearly more eccentric that an average person, he seems normal compared to the alien believers, and his dry wit highlights the commentary.

A back story is injected to give the film structure beyond simply compiling footage of the festival. The story purports that the insular Kronfeld (who still lives with his mother and has never left his home state of Minnesota) joins a group of enthusiasts to travel to Roswell to determine whether alien visitors actually exist. Kronfeld is shown at home, at work, and with other people back in Minnesota. Although this setting has its own quirky flavor, it is meant to present a contrasting frame of reference to which to compare the truly bizarre setting of Roswell. The filmmakers readily admit that much of this story is fabricated.

The festival at Roswell is too odd to be fiction. The belief in aliens is one thing, but the extent of fascination some people have is incredible. The landscape of Roswell is transformed into a surreal landscape, with apparent non-humans roaming everywhere. Kronfeld's participation and interaction with the people is wry and amusing. Instead of simply being a passive inquisitor, Kronfeld intentionally becomes a character in the story. When Kronfeld asks one of the numerous trinket vendors if one of his alien spaceships is not simply a Star Wars X-Wing fighter, the vendor responds that simply calling anything alien will make it sell. This quick scene typifies the atmosphere, where anything and everything remotely alien is celebrated.

The footage is primarily a composition of the many sights and events of the festival. These vary from an outrageous fashion show to a serious debate about the credibility of the evidence for alien life. The footage culminates in the unbelievably kitschy production of "Roswell: The Musical".

Highly recommended. Although the film has a documentary format, it departs from the genre by trying to be funny and entertaining rather than insightful. Because of this focus, it takes the liberty of adding contrived, staged footage to provide a backstory to the actual coverage of the festival. The film succeeds in being entertaining, partly because it composes the rich source material into a coherent collage, and because the staged footage is actually funny so its humor makes up for the betrayal of the format.

    (c) 2000 Murali Krishnan
    The Art House Squatter
    http://ArtHouseSquatter.com

    Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
    Before you buy.

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews