Eolomea

Communist East Germany. Great Filmmaking. Stellar technology and science fiction. Do these things seem to fit together in any conceivable way? No, they do not.

Why the DVD production company has the nerve to even compare "Eolomea" with the likes of Tarkovsky's "Solaris" or "2001" is beyond me. At best, this "lost classic" is more like an Austin Powers / Benny Hill rendition of a serious space epic, with a Burt Bacharach soundtrack and plenty of lava lamp space imagery. Movies like this were what "Mystery Science Theater 3000" in the 1990s was made for.

Others here have attempted to explain the storyline , which is so convoluted and fragmented throughout that there is not a shred of suspense or even empathy for the characters. Strangely enough, I still think this movie does have one important historical value: like a representation of Communism itself, it shows what at the time must have been wild scientific/philosophical idealism in its home country, but in hindsight is just robots made of ugly hunks of metal junk and astronauts with holes in their socks.

I recently discovered East German Sci-Fi, which didn't produce large numbers but a few very interesting films of that genre. One of these is Eolomea, rather good and in many ways cerebral film which requires all of viewer's attention. Story is carefully constructed and the sets aren't any worse then US films of that period such as "Silent Running,(not counting the "2001 Space Odyssey", of course, which is impressive even by today's standards). No, the sets and the effects are very decent, giving the budget and conditions of the production and if you compare it to big budget US flops such as "Marooned" it's on another level. Beautiful Dutch actress Cox Habbema is a real treat to watch, leading the international cast in which Ivan Andonov (a Bulgarian actor/director) and Vsevolod Sanayev, stand out. This is a first of three DEFA Sci-Fi Collection films, released by First Run Features, I had a chance to watch and it's pretty good.

Science fiction made in East Europe usually has different perspectives of life as Western science fiction. This is one example.

Not about technology or the future of our society, not even about the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (that it claims to be about), but about humans, their character traits, and their quest for the final frontier.

Accordingly the visual effects by Kurt Marks and Boris Trawkin, though awarded the Grand Prix of the UNIATEC, suffer in comparison with other fx-heavy movies made about the same time, like Academy Award-winning The Poseidon Adventure or Douglas Trumbull-directed Silent Running.

Still it creates a future that could happen any time, showing technology only in outer-space, and the stations in space and on asteroids look pretty much like good old MIR, the Russian space-station.

And yet it is rewarding for those who love the human desire for knowledge...

This was the third science fiction movie of the legendary DEFA studio and the first one to be based on an original concept (by Bulgarian Angel Vagenstein), starring Dutch Cox Habbema, Ivan Andonov (a director in his native Bulgaria) and Russian actor Vsevolod Sanayev (who died January in 1996), and German actors Rolf Hoppe and Wolfgang Greese.

Unknown movie from Iron Curtain this weird picture somehow follows de steps of 2001's Kubrick which touch in the same premise, Eolomea that means "Spring" sounds heavily complex to my taste, the summarized storyline is about in the unnamed future the world who has twelve millions people and has a worldwide space project gathering all powerful countries whose geared by a closed council, meanwhile some spaceships disappears without a trace, an after this they tries understand why it happened there, without coming in a fair conclusion, a mission is assigned to find out the truth, between comings and goings the finally faced the unexpectable.

The picture itself is slow down and hugely pointed out in political matters as always movies from eastern Europe, quite often encrypted and sometimes boring, nonetheless has a stunning visual overall, but if you have enough forbearance certainly will go to the end, aware above all don't excite too much previously, more suitable for nerds or something alike, it quite sure isn't a regular western standard science fiction palatable for us!!

Thanks for reading.

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First watch: 2022 / Source: DVD / How many: 1 / Rating: 7.

Herrmann Zschoche's "Eolomea" is an OK, not great sci-fi flick. It contains material similar to what we saw in "2001" and "Solaris", but doesn't have the philosophical content inherent in those two. I guess that East Germany wanted to try out the genre, so they made this adaptation of an Angel Wagenstein screenplay. It's about an investigation into the disappearance of some spaceships. There's some jumping back and forth, and even a few scenes that look filmed in a Mediterranean country, so it gets confusing at times. Nonetheless, I thought that it was an OK movie. The movie won't be for everyone, but most people are bound to enjoy the robot scene.