Political theory and practice

The Silence of Dr Evans (1974) Molchanige doktor Ivens

IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1 hour and 30 minutes, rated 6.2 by 172 cinematizens.

Genre: Sy Fy; Species: First Contact.

DNA: USSR.

Verdict: Treacle. 

Tagline:  Now Hiring Ventriloquists.

An airliner develops engine trouble and crashes…onto the top of an a cloaked alien space ship from which humanoid alien anthropologists are observing Earth. One of the survivors rescued by the aliens, violating the prime-time directive, is Martin Evans, aspirant Nobel Prize scientist, and he alone meets the aliens face-to-face.  The others have their memories blanked, but he is allowed to keep his, promising never to reveal what he has learned, as long as they don’t ask Evans (see below). See The Flight that Disappeared (1961) for a similar plot ploy; reviewed elsewhere on this blog.  

The aliens debate aborting the study now that there has been this unexpected contact, but they decide to stay. (Warning! They do a lot more debating.) While Evans tells no one, his behaviour becomes erratic as he tries to contact the aliens.  Eventually one of them succumbs to his blandishments and a romance of sorts develops which he pursues without a second thought for his wife.

The police suspect there are illegal immigrants in the woodpile and are soon onto him, but he clams up.  He and the alien squeeze try to make a getaway but fail miserably. Car chases were not on the curriculum.

The ominous police, the paranoia of the authorities, the fear of the unknown are all deracinated, but the street signs are in English and his name is Martin Evans.  But the language, the manners and mores, the attitudes are Russian.  

The conclusion is that these Earthlings are not mature enough to make contact with aliens, because the authorities are clumsy oafs. The setting is supposed to be England, and the implication is that the aliens would do better to seek out peace-loving people…to the East.  Yet early on a red star marked Soviet MIG shot down one of the aliens on an away mission. Maybe I missed the point, again.

Since the aliens communicate by telepathy they are expressionless while debating. No one had to learn lines, just stare. That never works.  For further proof see Starship Invasions (1977), an Italian Sy Fy feature starring a silent Christopher Lee who at times seems to be thinking about lunch.     

It’s slow and talky, and I did not warm to any of the characters.  It is so serious, there is not a light moment in it. In this case there was no point in asking Evans.

Accumulator 1 (1994) 

IMDb meta-data is runtime 1 hour and 42 minutes rated  7.0 by 1600 cinematizens.

Genre: Sy Fy; Species: doppelgänger.

DNA: Czech. 

 Verdict: Inventive.

Tagline: Refreshing but exhausting.

Fraternity Brothers Advisory: nudity.  

TV sucks the life-force from an unlucky few who respond to street interviews at certain times and places. That exposure creates an avatar who lives off the victim’s energy in a netherworld. The victim suffers complete enervation with no symptoms of a disease. Accordingly, there is no treatment so the victim is discharged from hospital. 

A naturopath gradually begins to see the common denominator among those afflicted. Once infected, to walk by a television set that is turned on is to be drained. One victim dies and with him his parasitical avatar. To save another the naturopath bends all efforts but true love and dentistry complicate things.

There are many amusing and clever scenes, like the shoot-out with the remoters and the dental gala with the high whine of drills. 

The actress in the left picture was last seen speaking English in an episode of Lovejoy, here she speaks Czech. By the way, it was not episode of Lovejoy set in Prague but in East Anglia.

For those easily offended this film has something for everyone.

Age of Pioneers (2017) The Spacewalker

IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 2 hours and 17 minutes, rated 7.2 by 4679 cinematizens.

Genre: Sy Fy.  

DNA: Russia.

Verdict: Riveting!

Tagline: Good to go!

A superb account of the Soviet space mission for the first human EVA in 1965. For those who do not know what EVA means….tough!

Two flyboys get a chance and they take it. Needless to say, the timetable is changed because of political circumstances but off they go beyond the wild blue yonder to punch a hole in the sky. Sure enough things go wrong and they have to fly the tin can with the Right Stuff.   

Meanwhile the flight director battles the technicians who are willing to sacrifice the flyers for the data from the flight, the general who prefers dead heroes rather than admit failure, and his own self doubts to bring his men back. They went with jaunty smiles for the camera, while the Flight Director promised them that he would bring them back for a drink.

There is a subplot with a ham radio operator that escaped both me and the subtitles. By the way the film Leonid Brezhnev is watching is the Planet of Storms (1962).   

Superb performances all around from the actors with crisp direction. 

The ingenuity, the persistence, and the courage to go where no one had gone before is breathtakingly brought home with astounding cinematography.  The moment when Alexi releases the handhold is wonderful. Truly it was a gesture for our kind.  

As to the period and setting, I note that no one smoked.  No one. And the many staff members at Mission Control all looked pressed, ironed, and clean despite 72 hours or more of continuous duty in high tension.  There seemed to be no second or third shift.  

The few women in the cast stand around and look worried, or serve the tea.

La Antena (2007) The Aerial

IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1 hour and 39 minutes, rated 7.3 by 4327 cinematizens 

Genre: Sy Fy; Species: Fairy tale.

DNA: Argentina.

Verdict: Olé!

Tagline: Vox populi.

In the dark city no one can speak for progressively their voices and words have been taken from them by an unscrupulous media mogul who uses television to drain the will of people. Sounds contemporary. 

Only two voices remain. A coerced singer whose siren song is used to squeeze out the residual words from citizens. She has made a Faustian bargain for her now seven year old son was born without eyes and the coercing magnate has promised her that if she sings to the end he will supply the boy with eyes and that mission is nearing completion.  The boy’s is the other voice heard later in the story.  

By mistake the package with the eyes is delivered to the wrong address, and this leads to the involvement of a tweenage girl next door and her estranged but ever silent parents, she a nurse and he an inventor. Their wonder when the boy speaks is memorable. 

Together the parents overcome their own differences and thwart Rupert but good.

It is a silent movie with a soundtrack, inter-title cards that become part of the action, and marvellous imagery.

Among the critics I read, one, while grudgingly admitting the film’s unique virtuosity, lays into it for privileging the nuclear family. Apart from that inanity, most reviewers see it as a metaphor for oppressive corporatism.

Maybe but it is more likely a metaphorical condemnation of the Dirty War (1976-1983) and the rule of the generals, allied with oligarchs,  who suppressed voices and destroyed families, coerced singular individuals to legitimate the regime, and covered up by murdering witnesses. The resonance with these Dark Years would be surely felt by many Argentines, if lost on smug and cosseted Anglo reviewers.

Ruusujen aika (A Time of Roses) (1969)

IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1 hour and 25 minutes, rated 6.0 by 244 cinematizens.

Genre:  Sy Fy.

DNA: Finland.

Verdict: Ambitious. 

Tagline:  Vertigo.

It is set in the future of 2011 and anticipates cell phones, the internet, and the pestilential persistence of flared trousers. It features transparent inflated furniture used in one noteworthy scene as a prism.

Fictional Finland 2011 is all glass and steel modern where all social and economic problems have been solved. Everything is state owned and our protagonist is a film maker assigned to make a documentary tracing the evolution of this idyllic state from its origins in the dark days of 1968.

He has a Twiggy assistant with spider eye make up and hot pants who follows/leads him around. With her subtle nudging, protagonist decides to use the life of an individual to narrate the transformation, a particular individual for in visiting an art exhibition, as arranged by Twiggy, he sees a 1968 photomontage of model that captivates him, and just by chance, again arranged by Twiggy, he comes across the photograph of a contemporary woman who is the doppelgänger of the 1968 model, he decides to recruit her to act out the story in mockumentry style.

What the sap doesn’t realise is …. SPOILER ALERT…that the doppelgänger has her own agenda and Twiggy is in on it. 

The look-alike is an engineer in a nuclear power plant where the workers are about to strike!  With Twiggy’s assistance, this engineer wants to use the documentary to get across their story and demands which are never articulated. 

Love confuses everyone and everything and it does not go well for any of them. By the way, the title is explained in the dialogue and it is not the obvious but refers to an idyllic time, a time of roses.  No, not under the sign of the rose, sub rosa, I.e., a secret.

The doppelgänger reminds me of Vertigo (1958), and the cinematography of Alphaville in the daylight. 

Perhaps because of the poor subtitles, or my inattention, I could not fathom the climax.

A Mere Mortal (1991) Simple Mortel

IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1 hour 25 minutes, rated 6.5 by 253 cinematizens.  

Genre: Sy Fy 

DNA: France. 

Verdict: Effective. 

Tagline: Who is calling, please?

A library rat whose speciality is very dead, very obscure languages from Meso-America neglects his girlfriend and ignores his only friend as he toils away in Paris. Then he starts hearing things. At first it just static on radios in the apartment or car but it slowly come into tune though only briefly.  It is an androgynous voice speaking a very ancient obscure dead language which he has lately been studying for he is one of the few in the world familiar with this tongue.  

These messages in Mayan, let’s call it that to keep it simple, come on a car radio, a stereo, a telephone answering machine, a Walkman and so on always when only he can hear them. He begins to think he is going mad and is unable to tell anyone for fear of ridicule or worse. The messages tell him to do this or that with the threat that if he does not a catastrophe will occur. Escalation ensues. When he hesitates a catastrophe does occur, so he then complies to avert another. 

By the way the Mayan dialogue has French subtitles and English ones overlaid on top of them. The result is by Georges Braque.  

The atmosphere of confusion, dread, and paranoia is nicely done without any gimmicks. Bruce Campbell does not leap from the shadows. Is it really happening or is he going nuts? Or both.

Moreover, there is a resolution of sorts at end. Think Tron.

 Mishen (Target) (2011) 

IMDb meta-data has a bladder-challenging runtime of 2 hours and 45 minutes, rated 5.7 by 661 cinematizens.

Genre: Sy Fy (sort of).

DNA: Russia.

Tagline: An Eternal Putin!  

Verdict: The elephant brought forth the mouse.  

The fraternity brothers advise that it includes sex and violence, and violent sex, for those who like that.

In distant 2020 a small group of ageing, ultra-rich Moscow oligarchs find a fountain of youth and are…rejuvenated.  The magic elixir collects in an abandoned facility of the Soviet space program called Target. Only lately have its properties been understood, but it was too late for Ponce de Leon.  

These plutocrats are none too nice, and rejuvenation does not improve them. Does the astral mineral stop ageing or slow it, the subtitles weren’t sure. Whatever, bathing in radiation after Chernobyl did not seem very attractive but they do it.  

Billy Wilder once said he started screenplays with the last scene and then worked back to how it all got there. He made that explicit in Sunset Boulevard (1950) and then topped it with another. Too often screenwriters and directors have no end in mind, no resolution, no summation, no direction on which to conclude, and this movie is an example of that. Like a student writing a thesis without a purpose who stops when the word limit is reached, it ends when they ran out of film not when the story concluded because it didn’t, perhaps, because it couldn’t, having no conclusion. 

The science fiction trigger of the magic substance and some futuristic gadgets are minor accoutrements, not central to the story of what a few people would do if eternal youth were possible. Pretty much the same old stuff as they do now. Egads, more unbearable budget committee meetings!  

The cinematography is superb both of the future in urban Moscow and in the wilderness near Mongolia where Target was located. It is a treat for the eyes, and the acting is fine. The whole, however, is less than these parts. Nor is it diverting.  The film is as shallow and self-indulgent as the characters it portrays, rather like the remakes of The Great Gatsby (1974 and 2013). There is much emphasis on China and Chinese but it adds nothing to plot or character. And, why would such a future world continue to rely on semi-trailer road transportation that looks just like the 1950s.  

Curiously one of the leads is a bilingual Anglo among all those Russkie names in the credits.