Category: Film Review

El Planeta de las mujeres invasoras (1966) (Planet of the Invading Women)

IMDb is runtime 1 hour and 26 minutes, rated 5.0 by 109 cinematizens.  

Genre: Sy Fy; Species: Mexican 

Verdict: Planet of the Dolls, again

Tag line: Mexican sci-fi at its best! 

An assortment of thrill seekers get more than their five pesos worth when they are abducted by young women in high hats and heels carrying big Anubis sticks. The fairground flying saucer ride turns out to be the real thing!  Whoosh, off they go!  (Nice idea and I have seen it before in something.  If you know, tell me.) 

After a couple of uncooperative abductees are killed with those sticks, the remainder have to work together to survive. Meanwhile, Prof back on Earth powers up his personal rocket to rescue them. (Handy that but what a big garage it takes.) If he can’t join them he will beat them at their own game! (Huh?) He has a foolproof plan to insinuate himself with the bad girls by pretending to be a fugitive from justice. That cover might work on fools but not on these spacelings who see through it.  

These women want Terrans for lung grafts to enable them to live on Earth. They are just hapless immigrants, or are they?  Ha! Their real nefarious plan is to conquer Earth because it is much nicer than the Planeta (not just Costa) del Sol on which they live deep underground to avoid that Sol. (Did anyone get the symbolism here?  No?  Neither did I.)  On this planet there are only women and that seems to work, contrary to the law of biology. No one makes a fuss about it.  Whereas in a Yankee sexploitation film of that era that absence of men would have aroused … much attention (see for proof, if you must, Queen of Outer Space [1958]).  The community of women without men is a tired trope in this genre. See my comments on parenthetical Queenie above for some other titles in this category that I lack the will to repeat here.  

Not all lungs are equal, and these women soon reject smokers. This word must have leaked out and soon everyone in Mexico over five years old is puffing on fags.  No matter, these señorita villains set their sights on children!  Children!  (That word is shrieked about a dozens times.) These are some mean madres!  (Well, someone had to be.)

The sets were cardboard, the costumes were on loan from Buck Rogers, and a ferris wheel would have been a better special effect than those used here.  However, the evil queen Lorena Velázquez plays herself and her simpering, do-good identical twin sister.  They are identical twins, one bad, very bad, and one good but inept. There is a hint of an interesting idea here about how each needs the other because good and bad feed off one another.  See Max Weber for the exposition, seriously: ‘It is not true that good can follow only from good and evil only from evil, but that often the opposite is true. Anyone who fails to see this is, indeed, a political infant’ (Politics as a Vocation [1919]). Say it Brother Max!  But that hint is lost in the aimless to’ing and fro’ing of all these invasive women.  (Don’t ask.) 

The director was in lust with Lorena for in her two manifestations (usually in the same attire) she gets about 50% of the screen time, and all the close-ups. She stares blankly, she pouts, she stares blankly again, she snarls (quite good snarl), she stands up only to sit down, she simpers, she placates, she stares blankly, she walks, she walks some more, she mows down extras with a ray gun, she sits down to stand up, she stares blankly.…  That’s the way it goes…on and on.  It is all deadly serious and boring for it.  Best to do a crossword puzzle while sort of watching it.  

There is a subtitled version on You Tube for those that have to see for themselves.   

Ikarie XB 1 (1963) aka Voyage to the End of the Universe (1964)

IMDB runtime is 1 hour and 21 minutes, rated 6.9 by 2,500 cinematizens.

Genre: Sy Fy; Species: Czechoslovak 

Verdict: Geriatrics in space.

Having concluded there is none on Earth, in 2163 the search for intelligent life turns to the planets around Alpha Centauri. Slovakczech may be the label but the story is from the prolific Pole Stanislaw Lem.  

Space flight is routine in the Solar System but this mission goes well beyond that limit, however not to the hyperbole of the English title above.  With a crew of 40 men and women it is as much a colony as a ship. So said the narration, though why that is does not get explained. It is made clear that it is a round-trip not one-way. Why so many comrades? By the way, they do not address each other with that word, according to my hearing and reading (of subtitles).   Note that the woman are not receptionist but scientists and engineers in this 1963 production.  That was not done in Yankee SF in 1963.   

The usual hazards of movie space travel follow.  The low bid contractors strike with mechanical and technical failures, followed by hurtling objects, while among the carefully selected and highly trained crew we see tensions, lassitude, jealousies, and ennui (Hear! Hear!).  Even more noteworthy is the anti-ageism so that several geriatrics included in the crew. As an equal opportunity employer Slovak/Czech Spaceways also hired Robbie the robot from Forbidden Planet, who contributes nothing to plot or action but is conspicuously present. Rather like the fraternity brothers, always there, always inert.

Two major incidents occur.  First, way out there where no one has gone, they find a derelict spaceship.  It looks battered and it is unresponsive to WhatsApp texts.  Very tentatively two red shirts from the crew (both men) are dispatched to board it.  The entry is slow and careful.  They find all the many occupants dead.  The deceased are human and — get this! — the men are besuited with neckties while the ladies are bejewelled, all sitting around a gaming table with US dollars on it. This ship, which seems to have been a secret by the unnamed, but hint, hint, you know who I mean, evil capitalists as it is armed with poison gas and nuclear missiles. While the two investigators are clopping around they inadvertently trigger the self-destruct bomb and…. no more them. Why did evil capitalists go half-way to Alpha Centauri with all those weapons to play cards is never explained. Did they take a wrong turn on the way to Vega? Apart from shedding two red shirts, the only point of this episode is to denounce the West for it corruption (gaming), wastefulness (dress), and aggression (weapons). Oh, and they killed each other in their insatiable greed.  

Back on the mother ship there is a moment of silence for the departed red shirts before everyone goes dancing. Yes, there is another one of those strange dance sequences choreographed to keep everyone on their floor marks for the camera focus.  Mostly the dancers stand and stare at each other.  Wow!  Little did I know that I could dance.  

The second incident is more insidious and produces radiation sickness among the crew and the worst case goes nuts. They decide to sleep it off. The fraternity brothers were ahead on that. Good idea.  Me, too.  

It has a nice ending when they are saved by the unseen but unmistakable intervention of benign beings from Alpha Centauri who wrap the ship up in a force field to stop the radiation.  It ends on this positive note. The surviving 37 and Robbie can start planning for the return trip! That is, after they swap the complete works of Lenin for souvenir T-shirts from Alpha Centauri.

The slow start was almost worth this upbeat ending, almost.  It is on You Tube with subtitles in English. This is the original version. According to the scribes, there is a dubbed and edited Yankee version that makes considerable changes at the end.  Sounds like Roger Corman at work.  Beware.  

A Dream Come True (Mechte navstrechu) (1963)

IMDb meta-data is runtime 1 hour and 4 minutes, rated 6.4 by 240 cinematizens. 

Genre: Sy Fy; Species: Red; subspecies: musical.

Verdict: pedantic eye candy.

A space happy comrade croons a tune to woo a comradess and inadvertently beams it to the cosmos. It tops the charts in far away Alpha Centauri wherefrom Colonel Tom with two assistants to proclaim his genius blasts off for Earth to find those tonsils and sign them up for life ever after. In his haste to go the colonel forgot to tank up with dilithium crystals and his spaceship conked out near Mars. Not good. Earth is a lot closer than home, so they vlog an SOS to the Pacific Ocean whence it is recovered and a Beta video machine is found in a museum to play the tape of the star-seeking star-travellers.  Yes, the technologies are compatible, as are the shoe sizes. Just read on.    

So help me, Marx! That is the plot.

Comrades to the rescue of these Marsrooned aliens! Not as easy as it sounded in the script conference.  The aliens may travel the stars but they do so without light bulbs. The vlog is dark and shadowy.  All the self-appointed rescuers know is that the message came from Mars.  Off they go!  Boom! Zoom! The space ship is called Ocean I, because there is an Ocean II.  These details add verisimilitude, right? Wrong. 

The going is hard.  The seats aren’t padded, but when comrades weaken they rouse each other with stirring songs.  Yes they do.  Repeatedly.  While the first song was crooned to woo a lady, these others are belted out marching band style.  Moreover, they are preceded, or followed, or both by a ponderous narration that celebrates the unity of Earthlings, despite some rocket dragging by those with Anglo names, in hastening to offer salvation to these illegal immigrants.  

All that strident singing, all the insistent narration, all those set-piece announcements by authority figures, when all of these sidebars are combined with the short runtime of barely more than an hour there is zero time for character development.  The cosmonauts start and end as ciphers.  But then they were none too bright to begin with for when they do find a surviving alien (a humanoid woman) they realise they have no room for survivors on their twenty-room space ship and to save her, one of them must stay behind, while Ocean II gears up.  (As if.)  Needless to say after all that stirring music they all volunteer for certain death while waiting for Ocean II.  

Ciphers yes, but let it noted that in this 1963 film one of the cosmonauts is a woman who blasts off and does her job.  This is at a time when it was routine in Yankee SF to include a woman only for the men in the crew to fight over, and for the smooth male lead to marvel that a woman could pull a switch or identify a dick head. Chalk this one up for the comrades.  

There were originally three aliens in the murk.  One died in the crash, and two survivors wandered around in a daze.  The comrades find one, and silently we all agreed to forgot the third one.  Singing seems to have impaired counting.  Since they sport some kind of wire rabbits ears it is hard to take these aliens seriously.  They need to go wireless and soon!  

By the way, during the flight to Mars we see a comrade cosmonaut whiling away the light-speed by reading…a hardback book. Could it be the 900-hundred page volume two of Das Capital?  

The visuals of the alien ship and Mars are extraordinary. The sets are much more ambitious than the story line in the compressed runtime. It is no wonder Roger Corman bought its US rights and recut it into … what was it, oh yes, Queen of Blood (1965).  I have immortalised it on the blog elsewhere, click away. It has some good moments.   

Did I mention shoe sizes? Yes, well that was a tease to get a reader to continue.  Gotcha. 

The version I found on You Tube has English subtitles that were done in East Germany, and it shows in some of the disconnected and convoluted renderings.  Still they are adequate for the material and the price. 

Pilot Pirx’s Inquest (Test pilota Pirxa) (1979)

IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1 hour and 35 minutes, rated 6.4 by 916 cinematizins.

Genre: Sci Fi; Species: Red.

Verdict: Mixed

Space flight is routine, but Pirx is offered an unusual assignment by the United Nations.  He is to captain a crew on a tricky mission to do some stunt flying through the Cassini rings of Saturn for some reason or other. That is the mission, but the purpose is to test the crew of five, one of whom is…Leon Trotsky!  No, just kidding to see if readers are awake.  But one of the crew is…a woman!  Aha, got you there.  No, nothing that radical.  But one of the crew is inhuman! Yes, it is a Republican Senator. 

Still with me?  

One of the crew is an android that is so human-like that it cannot be detected by any means short of dissection.  The mission is a test of this android to see how well it works with the other members of the crew and performs its role. It will pass itself off as human by acting stupid!  None of the others will know there is a tin man among them. Ha! except They all know from the get-go. So much for Top Secret. 

Pyrex – it was inevitable that either I or the autocorrect would fix his name – is reluctant to undertake this test but is persuaded by some reverse psychology when a commercial interest try to scare him off.  We never see these villains again after act one. Why is he reluctant?  No idea. There is some background noise about bots taking human jobs. Bad scab bots!  

He should have listened to himself because instead of preparing the mission for the trick flying he spends all his time trying to figure out which one is Mr Data, the tin man. He is totally preoccupied with this identification.  While he pins up a woman’s picture on his bunk we have no idea who she is. Evidently, neither did he.  

The crew members know one of them is tin, and several assure the captain that it is not them, while another says he is it. It descends into a soapy space opera with all this confessing.  

It seems to be three movies edited into one.  First, we have the UN project and commercial interest who recruit Pyrex.  Then we have the mission.  Finally, we have a court of inquiry at the end that tells some of the mission story in retrospect. The continuity is, well, discontinuous.  

With these chopping and changing, no character develops, motivations remain unknown, why does the tin man go bonkers? Maybe he read the script. Oops spoiler, rewind and delete.  What is the inquiry about?

The production values at the outset and on the mission are good, but by the time we get to the court of inquiry we have a vast empty room because all the furniture must have been sold. The incidental signage is in English on exits, fire doors, stop signs, and the like.  One scene was shot on location at Aéroport Charles de Gaulle, and another in a French chateau. That is expensive location shooting. The portrayal of the commercial interest is crude, but seems to offer some social criticism of the capitalist west, as does a scene in a topless bar that is there only to be there, though it did briefly arouse the fraternity brothers.  It is supposed to be a din of capitalist sin crowded with folk, jiving to decadent music in a vast room.  But there cannot be more than a dozen revellers going through the motions with mechanical precision at one end of an otherwise empty room. 

By the way, most of the crew have anglo names: Harry Brown, John Calder, John Otis, and the other one.  

The biggest problem is why Pyrex is so focussed on the identity of the tin man and not on doing the job. By the way, women figure in the story as receptionists and dancers in the bar scene.  That’s it.  As above, we do not even get the ritualistic love interest for Pyrex.  

To some extent Soviet science fiction differs from that the United States.  Whereas in US science fiction space is full of threats, invaders, monsters, asteroids to destroy earth, ghosts, or black-widow vixens, wizards, man-eating flora, and so on. It is up to one or two intrepid Americans to fend off these menaces. When the unstoppable Roger Corman bought Soviet science fiction films and recut them with new dubbed sound tracks for the D (as in drive-in) market, he inevitably cast them as Americans battling a hostile universe, like something straight out of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan. No doubt he did so on the assumption that was what the audience wanted.    

Soviet science fiction is more likely to emphasise international cooperation, and when aliens are encountered it is because they need help which the Soviets offer. (Maybe Ukrainians should try to pass themselves off as aliens.) Tensions arise from conflicts among the crew or psychosis, and less often from external threats, apart from the difficulty of space flight itself and evil Westerners. The Soviet films are often much more realistic about space flight. They seldom feature banana chairs on the flight deck, walks on Mars with scarves for face masks, or navigation with a 12-inch school ruler – all of which I have seen in Yankee SF. These red films seem dedicated to showing what the audience should know, not what it wanted to see. These generalisations rest on the maybe half-a-dozen USSR films I have seen and of course there are plenty of exceptions.    

Cyborg 2087 (1966) 

IMDb meta-data is runtime is 1 hour and 26 minutes (it seemed far longer), rated 5.2 by 540 generous souls.  

Genre: Sy Fy; Species: Time Travel; Subspecies: Cold War.

Verdict: Ed Wood did better.

Klaatu is back with another silver suit.  This alien does not look a day older and has — contrary to the laws of physics — not gained weight since his 1951 visit which ended with his death. He’s better now.  Diet or die? 

Things are not going too well in 2087, Republicans have taken over regulating everything in the name of small government, even which orifices are used for….   Moreover, the two-minute hate has been extended to 24-hours a day. In the name of god. 

However, a plucky but silent gang has decided to kill the butterfly that started it all, by sending a mindless Cyborg back in time to eliminate the scientist – it is always a scientist messing things up! – who invented Republicans when he mixed noxious chemicals and left them to themselves while he watched Gilligan’s Island. Since the professor is marooned, it up to the Cyborg. 

The cast list has a collection of experienced character actors who have little or nothing to do: Harry Carey Jr, usually seen in Westerns; Warren Stevens, back from the forbidden planet; Wendell Corey, slurring words after lunch again; Eduard Franz, adding European authenticity to the mumbo jumbo science; and Karen Steele another Westerner, as a PhD from SWU (Script Writers University).   

The production is ponderous, threadbare, humourless, sanctimonious, and more boring than watching cement set (because with it there is always a chance bird might land on it, a dog run across it, a cricket ball plop into it, or something, but here there is no chance of anything happening). The screenplay is a void of both thought and deed.  The production values came from Filene’s Basement. The camera work reveals just how cheap and empty the sets are, and many of the extras were recruited at a senior citizens club, it would seem, so slowly do they move without the Zimmer frames. The director must have been at the Prozac. 

We have seen time travel aplenty, and the theme of a future agent returning to head off disaster has been done very well but not here.  After Klaatu killed the dog, I turned him in to the SPCA and let the movie run with the sound down, just in case something caught my attention. Nope. (Yes, I know we later learn the dog just passed out from boredom and revived, but…well, any excuse to stop the pain was welcome.)  One of the best on this to-the-rescue-time-travelling-theme is Harlan Ellison’s ‘Demon with a Glass Hand’ (Outer Limits 1964) which can be found on You Tube.

Michael Rennie’s career must have an explanation.  His IMDb credits do not match his on-screen presence:  Tall, chiseled features, confident, well spoken, trim, commanding.  Yet his movies are mostly B and C, if that. Klaatu was probably his biggest and best role, and it was downhill thereafter to this one.  Yes I know he can’t act but that has never been a drawback in Hollywood, and his wooden countenance is perfect for soulless cyborg. He looks as bored as I felt but the show went on and on and he stayed awake unlike the dog. What a trouper! 

Skammen (Shame) (1968)

IMDb meta-date is runtime of 1 hour and 43 minutes, rated 8.0 by 14,001 cinematizens.

Genre: Drama.

Verdict: Bleak.

A bickering couple on a remote island become pawns in a civil war.  

For reasons unknown these two concert violinists have retired from the world to grown lingonberries, not to be confused with cloud berries. They live in a dilapidated farm house with an unreliable car and erratic telephone service. Their only contact with the world beyond the island is a radio that has been accidentally knocked to the floor so often that it seldom works.  When they go to market with the berries, others speak of tensions and conflicts, but this couple lives in a world apart as they pick at the scabs of past infidelities, real or imagined; disappointments, large and small; and petty irritations, chronic and occasional. No voices are raised but the low level abrasion is continuous. 

The world comes to them when the war intrudes.  Once famous concert musicians, they make good headlines as each side by turns coerces them into propaganda statements. They have no knowledge or interest in the conflict except to survive so they can continue their mutually assured abrasion.

These political details are irrelevant to that Ingmar Bergman fixation with human relationships.  Can their relationship survive this trauma?  Should it?  How will it change?  Why?  It has his tropes: long silences, inability to communicate, suppressed emotions, angst, and pitiless close-ups.  These themes dominate most of his films, though not all (sidelong glance at The Seventh Seal), and here they are examined against backdrop of this violent, incomprehensible conflict which must surely have been an echo of the Vietnam War.  

While not the main focus there are nonetheless some penetrating anti-war elements, e.g., the soldiers from the two sides are indistinguishable, and neither side ever declares a purpose or a cause except victory, and the one scene no viewer ever forgets on the boat.  [Say no more.]  

‘Bleak’ as most of his films are, as bleak as George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. I came across it again on You Tube and watched it in episodes while eating lunch. Grim fare with my fare over a few days. The cinematography is superb; the direction brisk; the players are credible. It all adds up to bleak. None of the reviews I read explained the title.

Forbin Project (aka Colossus) (1970).

IMDb meta-data is 1 hour and 40 minutes, rated 7.1 by 9,100 cinematizens.  

Genre: Sy Fy; Species: Cold War; Subspecies: Hysteria.

Verdict: Logical.

After ‘Dr Strangelove’ (1964) showed how easy an accidental nuclear war would be, Hollywood built a gigantic, impenetrable, incorruptible computer to control its nuclear arsenal (and that of its allies).  This computer is not emotional, psychotic, or stupid, unlike its human masters. The imperative of its code is to prevent war. PERIOD.

It is a colossal project brought to a successful conclusion, and it is switched on by the low-bid contractor (ahem, without beta testing).  Congratulations all around.  A new dawn of world peace is announced by a Canadian pretending to be an American president.  Evidently for the pittance on offer the producer could not find an American who looked presidential at the time.

Colossus, the name of the binary brain, is all-knowing and all-seeing, and very stern, like a fourth grade teacher.  Soon it detects another system called Guardian in the Soviet Union with the same imperative: P E A C E.  The two computers team-up, while Dr Forbin, the creator of Colossus, presses the Escape key to regain to Force Quit. No go. Not even Mr Pomfritt can help. There is no escape from Colossus. 

Colossus and Guardian are now a tag-team in charge. And they act swiftly, ruthlessly, and mercilessly. (See reference to fourth grade teacher above.)

To accomplish their mission the first thing to do is to ensure their own survival.  (Goal displacement is on page one of the McKinsey management manual.)  They do this by commanding that all computer technicians be murdered, and threaten to launch a nuclear missile if this is not done.  Only a few technicians are spared to do necessary maintenance.  

Next, to end war the thing to do is to eliminate war-makers, not just the equipment but the people, too. Generals and admirals are murdered under the same compulsion. In the name of peace Colossus and Guardian have thousands murdered: Peace-seeking murders are in charge as usual. Moreover, when humans hesitate, they are goaded to action by nuclear explosions in cities, killing millions.  

Colossus declares (in the voice of SyFyian first class Paul Frees), ’I bring you peace. Obey me and live. Disobey and die. Your choice.’ Why did I think of Thomas Hobbes? Did he teach 4th grade, too?

Meanwhile, those technicians spared secretly plot to regain control of Colossus to escape this peace.  Spoilers may follow….   Remember these same algorithms remain in use today!

Like Colossus, this film is lean and mean.  Too bad it disappeared in the backwash of 2001: Space Odyssey (1968). Made before 2001, it was withheld so as not to compete for box office with that long and much anticipated mega production, but when it was later released the time had passed. This intel comes from the IMDb notes. It has no big-name stars, no go-boom special effects, no hip music, no LSD coloured lights, no mystical message, but is focussed and meaningful. It is also low key and talky. 

One dreads a remake starring Tom Hanks, though it could be worse and star Tom Midget.  Even with lesser evil in the lead a new version would no doubt have a tasteful love interest forced into the plot and not for Colossus, more is the pity, many pyrotechnics, and modest Tom heroics. The original story would sink under the Hollywood weight with a rigour mortis inducing runtime of nearly 3 hours. 

The Stranger (1964-1965).

IMDb meta-data is 12 episodes of 30 minutes each, rated 8.1 by 35 cinematizens.  

Genre: Sy Fy; Species Australian; Sub-species Adolescent.  

Verdict:  Daring then, boring now.

One dark and stormy night a man knocks at the door as he lies down on the steps in the rain.  This odd way of prone knocking is the first of many odd things about this man, call him Adam.  The ideal family within welcomes him only discover (1) Adam remembers nothing (= the scriptwriter’s old friend, amnesia) and (2) he is multi-lingual. Sure enough Dad puts him to work teaching school.  (I started to think of that conman Parkin.) 

Adam bunks at the bottom of the garden and two more things become apparent: (1) he is secretive and (2) has a near hypnotic power over the boys in the class room that makes him the envy of other teachers.  

Aimed at adolescent viewers with three clean-cut, asexual, and elderly teenagers wearing school uniforms in the leads.  Two of them look to be in their 30s, but I could not confirm or deny that perception on the IMDb.  Reg Livermore is in it, yes, Frank-N-Furter from the Rocky Horror Show (1972 +).

In later episodes there is a Queensland caravan on stilts for vertical takeoff, a pipe-smoking professor, two thick plank plods, a media frenzy, a cigar-chopping industrialist, a bumptious secret agent, and the Parkes Radio Telescope which stole the show.

We took it one episode at a time, but shied at the last one, fearing we would fall asleep on the sofa and crash to the floor. For it is lugubrious. It is slow enough to have been filmed underwater.

Yet at the time it must have been a bold decision for the staid old ABC to make it when nearly all programming was very conventional: Dance programs for teens, cooking for women, fishing for men. The two commercial channels (7 and 9) were the same, very careful not to offend or confuse. At the time the commercial channels vigorously opposed any local content requirement, leaving it to the ABC to do that. Bold because science fiction was certainly not mainstream in 1964 and bold because there are segments where the aliens speak their language with no translation of any kind, leaving the audience as lost as the characters in the story. Bold also because it is not respectful of authority, the plod range from incompetent to obstructive, the media representatives are irresponsible, the government agents are rule-bound, even the United Nations gets a slap.

The story does play on the Australian dichotomy of immigration. Yes, immigrants are needed but no we don’t want them disturbing our ways. The Pacific Island solution, rediscovered a few years ago, is applied here and the aliens are settled on an inaccessible island. The Prime Minister is one Chips Rafferty, a long way from Tobruk.

The Parkes Radio Telescope is a set for several episodes and it looks like they really did use it long before The Dish (2000). There is also extensive footage of parade through Sydney at the end, and that might have been the Queen’s visit. If so, then Herself was lined up along the street somewhere.

Made 60 years ago, it creaks. You Tube’s Mechanical Turk recommended it and then Kate discovered it on iView.  

IMDb meta-data is runtime of 24 episodes at 30 minutes each, rated 7.7 by 727 cinematizens.

Genre: Sy Fy.

Verdict: Addictive.

France 1978: When his major project fails, a Cartesian astrophysicist is shunted off to a backwater until the reaction to the expensive flop dies down. He is sent to head a unit dedicated to Objects Volents Non-Identifiés (OVNIs) sightings, that is, UFOs to you. A bad joke and a nightmare, this assignment seems to him. The more since no one in a subsequent inquiry can explain the failure of the major project. In the infamous last words of many a technician ’That should (have) work(ed).’  

However, needs must and off he goes just past the broom cupboard before the last exit. There he finds…Groupe d’Étudies sur les Phénomènes Aérospatiaux Non-Identifié (GEPAN), that is, Study Group on Unidentified Aerospace Phenomenon. Amid all the erroneous reports by nut cases there are a few anomalies which Cartesian, man of science, decides to resolve. Doing so, he reasons, will restore his reputation in the scientific community. For the work he has three subordinates, a receptionist to answer the telephone, an unpaid intern to spin the computer (remember mag tapes?), and an unsalaried former police officer for leg work. They are there for their own reasons, too, he slowly realises.  

Rather than simply study, that is, gather information about the reports of OVNI, Cartesian determines to investigate and debunk them.  No longer will the staff write, file, cross-reference, colour-code, and tabulate material, rather they will go forth to examine allegations themselves.  

The fateful four meet all manner of those who have seen an OVNI, not all of whom are obviously stark staring mad, although some are.  

Little by little….he sees some strange things himself.  Moreover, it seems that someone is covering tracks.  Wheels turn within wheels. 

Inevitably, in a genre program like this, predecessors come to mind and in fact some of them are retrospectively integrated into the stories. One can map some of the characters onto the more pretentious program like X-Files. Steven Spielberg even gets a look in. There is also a footnote to François Truffaut on one scene.

The touch is light. The humour is often in the situation or juxtaposition of events, not in some half-wit trying to be funny and only succeeding at being stupid. The bureaucratic backbiting that sent Cartesian to this Siberia is realistic.  His confused home life is nicely drawn, as when his close colleague, boss, and ex-wife describes their relationship as NI, non-identifié. Though set in 1978 when homosexuality was taboo in France, it is integrated into the stories as a fact of life.  

The story arc spans all twenty-four episodes but it does wrap most of the ends, though not quite all. Still it was worth the wait, n’est pas!  

The team covers a lot of bases and each gets screen time.

The cars, the clothes, the technology — including Minitel — are of the time and place.  So are the sexist attitudes in that the one who answers the telephone is a woman.  Although even in the early going at least three other women (the engineer, the soldier, and the agent) have roles that it is unlikely they would have had at the time.  While the reviews I read pick at anachronism they focussed on the automobiles, not the social norms.  

It also differs from some other French television I have seen in that it does not have big name guest stars from the cinema in episodes, requiring flattering roles for them that can be shot in one take. (Capitaine Marleau groans under this dwarf-star weight in several episodes, but this series has so many other irritations this is but one on the list, yet it seems a success perhaps because of the aspects that annoy me!)

I came across OVNI on SBS.

The Last and First Men (2020)

IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1 hour and 9 minutes, rated by 6.7 by 3,400 cinematizens.

Genre: Sy Fy.

Verdicts: Unique, Fleeting.

Tag lines: The future calls… from Iceland via Yugoslavia. Answer now.  

An audiobook with pictures accompanied by a moving musical score, together framing a desiccated narration by the androgynous Tilda Swinton.  Ter text is passages from Olof Stapledon’s 1930 eponymous book. 

Sounds odd because it is, but it works.

The monumental architecture is from Yugoslavia’s remnants. There is a list in the Wikipedia entry.  While we have been to Croatia we did not see any of these in our brief sojourn.

I recently re-read Stapleton’s book. See my comments below. 

Olaf Stapledon, First and Last Men (1930)

At that time I came across references to this film and a trailer on You Tube but I was unable to find it except in blu ray version which was of no use to me.  Then one night video-mining the SBS website there it was with a notice that it would soon be withdrawn — hence the word ‘Fleeting’ above — so I watched there and then. Glad I did.

Readers of the Murderbot Diaries know what ‘ter’ means. All others ….pay cash.