À travers les ronces vers les étoiles

A bit long but worth seeing. The story of Kir Bulychyov and Richard Viktorov is interesting and honorable by the same Richard Viktorov along with Nikolay Viktorov. It made me think of Tarkovski, "Solaris" and "Stalker". Yelena Metyolkina is impeccable in the role of the Niyya clone. And all the other actors are very credible and convincing. The film has a little humor, thanks to several characters. The decorations and the costumes are very well done. And Aleksey Rybnikov's music is super special.

It's hard to comment this movie for the non-Russian auditory but I'll try to explain everything.

As far as I see nearly no one here knows the reasons why all the Soviet sci-fi had poor special effects. The reason is simple: in Soviet Union were NO commercial movie industry at all. Movie makers were making their movies and had month pays for their work. When they began making a new movie they showed the screenplay to the ministry of culture and if the ministry accepted it it allotted them some money from the state budget. Any sci-fi had never been that politically correct in comparison to war or revolution movies and thus the budget of such movies was ALWAYS very small. You can understand how much devotion to the work and art was needed to make such films in such conditions. This is the reason why soviet sci-fi movie makers always tried to put into their movies the things that were not dependent on budget. They put ideas. Soviet way of life and way of thinking was much enclosed in itself and developed enclosed. Influence of western culture was rather subtle because all the borders were closed. Contraband products were rare and highly illegal. No one have seen any of the non-Soviet sci-fi movies until the very end of 80's.

"Cherez ternii k zvyozdam" ("Per aspera ad astra" is the correct translation) have one of the best special effects ever made in the Soviet Union, seriously. So ignore them, they are not the central piece of the movie. The central piece is the ideas, the characters and the acting. The visions of the ecological catastrophe were rather fresh in 1981 for the whole world, the more in the Soviet Union where government always told everyone that the future is bright. According to the screenplay there should have been the ending title saying "All the scenes of the dying planet Dessa were shot at the territory of the Soviet Union". No need to say that that title was censored out (now it was added in the new re-edited DVD version).

I see that many of those who have seen "Cherez ternii k zvyozdam" misunderstand its plot. It's very strange because the plot is clear and straightforward, possibly it's all because of the poor translation. In fact only the concluding scene may be found somewhat strange because it has purely allegoric meaning: creation of the new life.

All acting is nearly perfect, no need to describe it, especially amazing are the roles of the economical tyrant Turanchox by Vladimir Fyodorov, Ambassador Rakan by Vadim Ledogorov and of course, Niya the Artificial Human by Yelena Metyolkina.

9 of 10. Find a well-translated version, turn on your brain and you'll understand why I rated it so.

Cherez ternii... was released when I was a boy of 14 living in the Soviet Union and hungry for anything sci-fi. Well, this one fit the bill perfectly. With a typical 1980s story (ecological catastrophe, hints on the "soullessness of the capitalist society") and special effects somewhat more advanced than those of the British Dr. Who series, it still was two heads above anything else released in the USSR until then.

The film became an instant hit.

Now, keep in mind that we could not see the Star Wars or any other of the many Western sci-fi flicks of the time, with rare exceptions. And the sci-fi culture of the "socialist camp" was, no pun, campy. Special effects were typically like those of the early Dr. Who series (not that we had heard anything of Dr. Who either), and the plot simple as a nursery rhyme. In this context, Cherez ternii was a star indeed.

Plus, the nude scene, albeit short, was unusual for the Soviet cinematography of the time and rather attractive to the boys who had just advanced to the adolescent state.

All this made the fan base of the movie as wide as the Soviet Union itself, which is about as wide as Russia is now. Speaking of which, those boys of 1981 are today grownups, and so they decided to re-release Cherez ternii, with an improved picture and sound quality and somewhat rehashed frame sequence. If you understand Russian and decide to watch it, you can order it online.

As an adult, I would rate Chere Ternii k Zvezdam about the same as an average Star Trek episode, no better, no worse. Wish I could see Star Trek when I was a child.

The director of Cherez Ternii, R. Viktorov, made two more cult sci-fi films: Moskva-Kassiopeya (Moscow to Cassiopeia) and Otroki vo Vselennoj (Youths in the Universe). Check them out if you feel like it.

Oh, and btw, this Sandy Frank's version, Humanoid Woman, is total crap. But you knew that already, didn't you?

Cherez ternii k zvyozdam (aka. To Stars by the Hard Ways) is one strange, yet also rather campy, entertaining B-movie from Eastern Europe.

NOTE: This review is *not* on the "Americanized" version called "Humanoid Woman" which was rather hillarious on MST3K (screw you Sandy Frank!), this on the original Russo-Ukrainian version.

This doozy starts off with a group of Soviet Astronauts going to an abandoned Alien labratory on some planet is space, I guess. In a crazy weightless sequence, which is from what I've heard, filmed underwater, they run into a lone surviving alien woman who looks like Final Fantasy 7's Jenova after having chaemotherapy. Luckily, she does not touch anything, well, except for a picture of ol Gorbychov ^_~

When she gets to Earth, she learns Russian, uses telekinetics, floats off of the vegitation, does actrobatic stunts, getting used to Earth's climates and stranger yet, she hangs with "Rosie the Robot" with a vacuum-cleaning rear end!

However, everything on Earth is not peaches or creame, since there are some treasure hunters who want to use her at the archaeological dig, so they can become rich and famous. Then, the alien girl sees some people from her planet getting interviewed on TV. She regains her memory and sets back to her home world.

This is where it gets even funner! There are old wisemen midgets, clowns and harlequins wanting world domination and better yet, a raw seawge plie monster, possibly a distant relative of Hedorah from "Godzilla vs. Hedorah". Wouldn't surprise me, since they seem to be such similar beings, plus, they are very ummmmmm......different!

Anyways, this movie is on Eastern European cult movie that you have to see to believe!

..then people would understand it in its full beauty. It seems many reviewers condemn it for the particular - such as a poor example of scifi cinema robot or alien (the latter competing with that of Dark Star), or a sequence where a villain is found to be ticklish, which sets them oblivious as to the signifiance thereof and the movie's meta-narrative. For me, this film is of the school which performs a deftly deceptive lightness of touch around profound issues. But here, uniquely, we see utilised measured and studied absurdist interludes, and a romantic dreamlike dynamic. I write 'deceptive', because at its core, if you care to look deeper into the pool, there is a story which is a subtle yet quite profound exposition of and meditation on the nature of isolation; the yearning inherent in loneliness (who in their heart didn't hope for Neeya to be comforted with kisses and held in a loving embrace by Stepan before the end?) the transitory nature of being; how great beauty can exist alongside great tragedy; the whole wrapped in an environmental parable. Oh, and the soundtrack is powerfully evocative, like a fleeting nimbus of forgotten childhoods around quotidian adulthood; the shimmering whimsical harpsichord figure alternating with tone-poems and Kraftwerkian industrial-electro grooves on analogue synth are utterly fitting.