There's a documentary subgenre that can be summed up, roughly, as "look at these freaks." "They're Here" is not that kind of movie—at least, most of the time. The 74-minute movie, directed by Daniel Claridge and Pacho Velez, is short and sweet. It's billed as a human take on alien encounters, and consists of a series of interviews with people in upstate New York's apparently sizable UFO community who believe their lives have been touched in some way by the extraterrestrial.
The directors have an extremely light hand throughout most of "They're Here." We never see anyone from the film crew, and we hear them only briefly, posing a softball question to one of their subjects. The only moments where the movie feels like it takes on a slightly mocking tone are in a few sporadic fantasy sequences that break up the interviews, where a subject is beamed into the sky or reenacts a UFO sighting via cheap-looking special effects. The directors also avoid being prescriptive about whether or not the things their subjects are describing are "real"—it's a movie concerned with emotional truth, not cold, hard facts.
Conspiratorial thought is inherently isolating; make it your life, and you'll find yourself on the fringes of society, often in questionable company. So, it's notable how much "They're Here" goes out of its way to portray its subjects as deeply connected to other people, in spite of their self-reported encounters with inhuman intelligences.
Dave, a Scarsdale man who thinks he captured cellphone footage of an alien aircraft in the middle of a DIY psychedelic therapy session in his local park, cuddles with his siblings while they rewatch the video, talks to customers at the gas station where he works about the experience, and commiserates with his mother about feeling like he doesn't belong where he lives—in a New York City suburb. She tells him she feels that way sometimes, too. Multi-time abductee Cookie, who founded a Rochester-based UFO meetup group, supports her boyfriend Steve, as he struggles to recall his own close encounter through hypnosis. (Steve is the inventor of a board game called "UFOria," which he hopes helps players remember alien encounters of their own). The palpably awkward stand-up comedian who can't get his UFO material to connect with a crowd can still test out his jokes on his roommate, who doesn't seem to believe as hard as he does, even though they were together during his supposed UFO sighting. Cheryl Costa, a retired aerospace worker and UFO journalist, travels to deliver lectures on alien encounters to quasi-attentive audiences and wrote a reference book—20 years of UFO sighting data, collated into a hot pink volume—with her research partner: her wife.
"They're Here" is largely a vibes movie, a collection of brief character studies stitched together to create a softly focused portrait of a scene rather than an overarching narrative. As a result, it wasn't always easy to pay attention to—in fact, it probably would have been easier to focus if I watched it the way many people (anecdotally) watch UFO-related media: stoned.
But even if the interviews sometimes blur together, the message of "They're Here" is clear: We are not alone.
"They're Here" is playing as a part of Tribeca Festival on June 11 at 8:15 p.m., and June 15 at 5:45 p.m. at Village East by Angelika. Check out other Hell Gate recommendations from the festival here.
