Sputnik - Espèce Inconnue

Well, what do we have here? Could this be one of those films that have stopped coming from big studios a long time ago? Could this be a decent, well-made and thought provoking story in an interesting setting with great visuals and acting? In 2020?

Well, yes! Leave it to the Russians to bring some loving Sci-Fi back. Set in an intriguingly nostalgic feeling USSR of the 80s, "Sputnik" is a slow-paced, but increasingly intense story that manages to make you think a bit. The characters are nuanced, the plot is adequate, the cinematography very nice to excellent, and even the CGI is better than many films with way higher budgets.

If you don't try to project any "Western" expectations onto it and maybe even understand the "Russian soul" a bit, you will definitely enjoy this.

Cinematography (camera, pace, lighting, angles) is top-notch. Score is majestic and utterly suggestive of a dark, claustrophobic atmosphere and the sense of grappling with the unknown. Acting is good enough. However, the story goes nowhere really. The reach of the plot runs out at just over an hour, once the picture has become clear of what the situation is. From there on, it becomes nonsensical, as it lacks a credible motivation for the main characters' choices of course of action. There is also little reason behind a middle ranked army officer keeping all of this secret from headquarters. And the child subplot is rather superfluous and contributes nothing. The resolution of the story is hasty and fairly commonplace, a sign of the script having run out of original ideas.

The film is, therefore, a mixed bag. Technically, it stands its ground very well against better and more expensive sci-fi productions from Hollywood . It is true that special effects and CGI are sparse here, but this film is not meant to tread the same roads as thinly-scripted, CGI-heavy, teen sensations like Transformers. Instead, a well worked out script would have allowed expert direction to make this into a solid, sober and tense, sci-fi drama.

This movie starts off well enough with an intriguing, if a little slow account of the aftermath of a Russian space craft's return to earth.

There is a good deal of suspense throughout the movie and its well acted and reasonably well directed. The problems stem from the failing plot that surfaces about an hour into the screenplay where the focus shifts from the extra-terrestrial and scientific aspect of the events, to one of inter-Soviet self interest, coupled with professional ambition, deceit and posturing.

This is all done fairly badly and is incongruous with the preceding story line. The result is a sudden and very disjointed feeling from what was a quite immersive film experience. I'm not sure why this was done, but I suspect it was a foolish attempt to add depth and dimension to a plot that really needed something extra to successfully bring it to conclusion.

Though this isn't Alien, or anything like a number of other titles involving extraordinary beings coming into contact with humanity, its a well trodden path that doesn't deal with the subject mater particularly successfully. Finding a unique path for development isn't always easy and though it begins well, the plot becomes messy, the scenes and dialog delusive, and progression of the story becomes dependant on the characters making unrealistic decisions, poor choices, and atypical behaviour.

I definitely liked it initially, but sadly I began rolling my eyes with the later developments and by the end I was fairly disappointed with what really should have been a good film.

Old Hollywood movies always had romance in them. It mattered little if it was a thriller, Sci-Fi, Comedy, or some other genre. There was always some romantic subplot thrown in for completeness. Similarly, Bollywood films necessitate scenes where the cast dance around in the street like some sort of expression of national pride. This movie had its own throwbacks of this dated approach with the professional posturing, the vying for position, and the excessive engagement in political skulduggery. The results made it feel stilted and hackneyed, especially because it was done so obtusely. It really spoils the film.

I can't recommend it in all honesty, though I think a six is a fair enough score given it did have some good aspects.

I am happy to see that Russian scifi films are finally moving towards the Russian scifi literature that I loved so much as a child. This is a wonderful little gem, a Russian version of Life, but with more focus on the people and less on the special effects and action scenes. Not perfect, mind you, but so far the best Russian science fiction film I've seen them make recently. And the special effects were very good, too, which makes the decision to keep them in the background so much more laudable.

The weakest link is the main character, unfortunately, who does things that make little sense for a scientist. Yet her contribution is not that of a character, but as a carrier of the audience, so what she does is really not that relevant.

I hope Russian cinema will start bringing back the intellectual slow burn story, the civilian scientists that have to solve problems without relying on strength or weapons, but on their own thinking.

Set in 1983, this film opens with two cosmonauts preparing to return to Earth; they see something on the outside of their capsule. When the capsule lands one of them is dead and the other, Konstantin Veshnyakov, appears to be injured. He has no memory of what happened. The authorities, under Colonel Semiradov, invite psychiatrist Tatyana Klimova to try to help recover those memories. She is taken to a facility in Soviet Kazakhstan where she learns that there is far more to Konstantin's story than she was told... he has brought something back with him; something potentially very dangerous.

I enjoyed this film; some of the ideas may have been less than original but the setting gave it a freshness. Early on I wasn't sure what genre the film was as it is a while before it becomes obvious what the creature does and why. The design of the alien creature was impressive as was the way it moved. The cast did a solid job, most obviously Oksana Akinshina and Pyotr Fyodorov as Tatyana and Konstantin. While there isn't too much violence, what there is, is quite gory although unlikely to disturb horror fans. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to sci-fi fans.

These comments are based on watching the film in Russian with English subtitles.