Planeta Bur

If one wants to learn some Russian (which I would like to do if I could find the time), then this film would give some insights.

I bought the version from Sinister Cinema which seems to be missing the first half and so it starts with the cosmonauts discussing a tragic collision in space as they prepare to embark on a trip to Venus. It is in Russian with English subtitles and the special effects and the background music are both awesome. The story is pretty straight forward about a Russian expedition to the planet Venus, their encounter with dinosaurs and other strange life forms, philosophical discussions about the role of man in space, speculation about extraterrestrial intelligent life, and an ironic ending in which intelligent humanoid life is shown to exist on Venus, yet there is no contact between them and earth-born humans. Perhaps the writers intended a sequel.

Just like a lot of the German films from the 1930s, there is very little or no ideological propaganda, even though there is one reference to the Communist Party, Government, and the Soviet Union (thankfully a thing of the past). But aside from that single sentence, there is no reference to anything political. The story centers around a group of cosmonauts that represent not just Russia, but all of humanity as a whole as the crew embarks on an exploratory mission of the planet Venus. Recommended highly.

Dan Basinger

This is the first real Russian science fiction movie. I appreciated that it includes almost no ideological trash from the cold war, despite the time of its creation. The crew even includes one English speaking person, Mr. Kern. Mr. Kern is not as perfect as other members of the crew, but he is still a positive figure. What I liked was that this is real SF, and no mainstream movie with "magic" elements: there is space flight, there is an intelligent robot, there are fights with (quite funny) dinosaurs and pterodactyles, there are Venusians aliens and there is speculation about one solar race living on various planets but with common roots. It has all a SF fan can wish. (Except for time travelling and cyberpunk).

Not bad, not incredible like "Forbidden Planet" and not as colourful and tragic as "This Island Earth" and it is certainly not "Solaris". But we must give 60s Eastern bloc science fiction its due. None of it is bad. All of it respects the intelligence of the viewers and each manages to create effective atmospheres. The music and background sound were good. The robot and the "supercar" are dated but very good for the time. Naming the robot "John" is a bit of a dig at the West (one could just as easily see Westerners naming a robot Ivan or Igor). The robot is given a Western name while the crew are all self actualized socialist men except for the woman cosmonaut who is given the traditional role of minding the mothership and lamenting over the fate of the men who are off exploring the planet. If that and the song are the social commentary then it could have been much worse.

It is a bit odd having a robot named John speaking monotonic Russian, but this is a pretty interesting film. I also found it interesting that a couple of English phrases were tossed in on occasion. This is not at all what I was expecting, which was something along the lines of "OUR space program is better than YOUR space program", considering the year this was made. However, there was only one passing reference to any political/ideological struggle, and that was probably thrown in to appease whatever Soviet film board that had to give its approval to this movie. I would recommend this one for any sci-fi junkies out there who like to see what other countries did with the genre.

It doesn't compare with modern day films at all, but then one shouldn't try to, should one? Gee they all (and probably "we too") took themselves so seriously those days!!

I'm confused by one previous commentator who said the film was in black and white. Maybe her TV was, but the film as I saw it last night certainly was in colour (well, 1960s colour, anyway).

One quote from the film certainly is worth commenting. That's where they are speculating that there may have been creatures who crashed their spaceship a long time ago and then turned feral. The character comments that they would have had "no culture". Well, that's the Eastern European way, isn't it? Culture is so important; but what they can't seem to perceive, so useless. As author Stephen Coonts said of the Russians: "They can all write poetry but not a single one of them can change a light bulb" (well something like that, anyway).

But putting that to one side, yes a most interesting and well-made film of its time. The singing absolutely blew me away. Not the quality of the singing, I mean the fact that they had singing at all in what otherwise seems to me such a "serious" movie!