Monday, 20 October 2014

A little bit of sci-fi in your revolution

Aelita: Queen of Mars (1924)

Directed by Yakov Protazanov this film based on the novel of the same name stars Yulia Solntseva, Igor Ilyinsky and Nikolai Tseretelli. A man in Moscow becomes obsessed with travelling to Mars after a strange signal is heard from space.

Despite the sci-fi premise unfortunately most of this film is based on Earth and centres round the domestic life of the characters. A lot of the plot of the novel has been chucked out in favour of revolutionary dialectic which is a real disappointment and I think the conclusion to the film may be a rather large plot hole. What is really impressive about the film are the Mars sequences which have amazing sets and costumes even if they are sadly underused.


4/5

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