I feel like this movie is a little misleading with how it presents itself. It wants to be known as one of the earliest science fiction movies in cinema. Possibly the earliest one in the Soviet Union.
And in a way it is true.
This is a very early science fiction film. But that's not what he primarily is.
If anything I'd call this a soft romantic drama that just happens to contain alien life forms from another world.
So you have this guy named moose (or Los) he works for some Soviet scientific research facility. Possibly as a engineer, physicist maybe he's just a radio operator.
Honestly I can't remember and it doesn't really matter. He and a bunch of other people all around the world we receive this strange broadcast from beyond the stars.
Anta Odeli Uta
It was sent out in Morse code and was picked up by just about every major radio operator around the world. A lot of places didn't pay it any mind and the few that did didn't get anywhere.
But our man Mooes was spirit on by the strange message. Now he's given the inspiration how to build a spaceship that will take him to Mars.
And it's at this point that the science fiction angle starts to dwindle. Sometimes it'll pop up as a dream sequence by Moose. But otherwise it's just him his friends, his wife (Natacha) and a guy who Moose thinks she's cheating on. This weird Playboy philanthropist who's part of some underground Society of formally Rich bourgeoisie now living in the newly-created Soviet Union.
And this is where the film is mainly concentrated in. A kind of love triangle between a philanthropist a scientist and a woman who works for the ''Workers Bureau Union'' or something of that sort. One of those organisations that's supposed to send food to the needy and keep track of all the former Red Army soldiers who served during the war.
The weird part about all of this is how the romance between moose and the Queen of the Martians starts the blue as his relationship with his wife starts to deplete.
He keeps having visions and dreams of a woman living beyond the confines of Earth. And this is part of the inspiration that makes him want to send his rocket into space.
Really it does make for some of the more entertaining Parts in the movie. The parts on Mars are done with these Giants set pieces made with elaborate glass and wires with a bunch of other trippy looking imagery that would go on to influence not just Soviet works of art; But American, British and just about anyone else you can think of as well.
The alien civilisation is quite fun in themselves too. A kind of authoritarian state with Roman imagery.
It's during the third Act that this film becomes a true science fiction experience. Moose along with a few other people launch the rocket into space and finally land on Mars. Where they have all these weird interactions with the Martian people. Queen finds moose and the two of them engage in their own little romance*.
It's during this little romance that the film comes to its most ridiculous Point. Moose and everyone else who came on the ship are now trying to spread the Communist doctoring to the poor Slave people who are working in the mines in the Martian hierarchy.
Not only are they able to persuade the peasants, but they get the Queen and the military to join them as well.
And we literally end up with a scene where the Martians liberate themselves and Proclaim their new country the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republic of Mars".** It's high-strung propaganda and it's absolutely fabulous.
Then we cut back to a scene of Moose at a train station staring at two of his friends departing for the Far East.
He realises that he was imagining a large part of the movie and that a great deal with what happened never actually occurred.
It's the old; ''It was only a dream'' trick.
In most movies I would roll my eyes a little bit at that but it's actually used in a kind of clever way here.
Where Moose returns to his wife finding out that she had never cheated on him and that he had only imagined such an event. Along with the whole murder and of course to travel to Mars itself.
He uses this as a time of reflection and decides to throw away all of his research on Martian activity. Dedicating his life to more ''Earthly'' Affairs. Claiming that it's time to stop dreaming and go out and acknowledge the real world.
Overall it's an okay little movie. It's stories fun to watch the characters are well-rounded and the Martian world is used just enough to keep you interested without becoming stale and repetitive.
And believe you and me this is a big problem in a lot of American and British made science fiction movies from the next 20 years.
Now I say all of this having only watched the hour-and-a-half version of the film. Supposedly there's a two hour version out there that has more Martian scenes.
Could possibly be okay, but I suspect it's a little overwhelming. It might end up subtracting from my previous statement.
*Before all of this happened Moose actually shot his wife Natacha. Because he was jealous of her supposedly being relationship with this other guy.
Then this led to an entirely different part of the movie where this random police officer was trying to investigative guy who Moose was pretending to be after the murder. It's a whole thing that's interesting in itself but really doesn't mix in all that well with the aliens.
**I was kind of surprised by the amount of pro-soviet imagery in this film.
And I know that might sound kind of silly given that it's an early soviet-made movie.
But usually in Soviet films the propaganda is either played down (usually they try and make part of the everyday conversation) or the propaganda is used in such a cunning and manipulative way that it ends up becoming a critique of the very thing it was trying to promote in the first place. See the Soviet film "Beware of the car" for a great example of this.
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