Le voyage cosmique

Since Herr Georges Méliès visited the moon at the beginning of the last century, there have been many attempts to do likewise by other directors who were fascinated by the incredible space travel and bizarre landscapes and creatures that Herr Méliès showed in his masterpiece. However, this was not an easy task at all, as illustrated by the story of Herr Vasili Zhuravlyov who, because of political censorship, endured much frustration and many delays in sending a communist manned spaceship to the moon. He finally was able to make his dream come true in the late year of 1936 under the now extinct Stalinist U.S.S. R.

Such a complicated space travel project is depicted powerfully in "Komicheskiy Reys: Fantasticheskaya Novella" ( "Cosmic Journey" ), a very interesting and inventive sci-fi film with special effects that are very different from those today but are still skillfully done. Herr Zhuravlyov does not let the propaganda background sink his artistic intentions, certainly a task-given the times-that may have been more difficult than actually sending someone to the moon.

Obviously the political background can't be ignored in the film, so there are many communist references in it, the most significant being that the spacecraft that finally lands on the moon is called "Josef Stalin" and of course there is the film's message about the power and accomplishment of technical research in the U.S.S.R. but this is acceptable in terms of the story.

The art direction and space imagery of the film is certainly astounding, including beautiful and imaginative décors and models, suggesting these supposedly futuristic times of the, Ahem… mid 40's of the last century. Especially remarkable is the travelling effect wherein the two U.S.R.R. spacecrafts are shown in detail in the hangar and of course the moon décors, showing a mysterious and deserted planet reminiscent of l Herr Méliès .

The cosmonauts will have an extra and dangerous mission trying to send a radio message to the Earth ( well… it is more correct to say U.S.R.R. ) in order to let them known that finally the spacecraft has landed. There is also a big problem with the oxygen tank but there is a light side too as we see the cosmonauts walking on the moon (via animation), a sequence that gives the film an air of charming fantasy.

"Komicheskiy Reys…" is a very imaginative oeuvre, a remarkable picture full of fantasy and imaginative technical resources, an excellent example of the space race between cinematographers.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must moon around as usual.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com

Despite fears that he will die trying, Professor Pavel Ivanovich Sedikh (Sergei Komarov) insists on making his planned trip to the moon. He enlists a number of uniformed children (whom he refers to as "Young Astronauts"*; the film was promoted by the 'All-Union Leninist Young Communist League') to distract Professor Karin (Vasili Kovrigin), director of the 'The Moscow Institute for Interplanetary Travel', boards the 'rocket-plane' with his assistant Marina (Mariona Ksenia Moskalenko), and youthful stowaway Andryusha (Vassili Gaponenko), and the three of them take off for the Moon. The film is very imaginative and realistic (for the times). In preparation the extreme acceleration of take-off, the crew are immersed in tanks of water, and they experience zero-gravity when the engines are shut-off and reduced lunar gravity when they land (allowing them to make prodigious leaps when not wearing their heavy metal moon-boots). The special effects are outstanding, especially the long tracking shots of the two rockets in their massive hangers. The great streamlined and finned spaceships are visions straight from the covers of vintage 'Amazing Stories' magazines and the intricately detailed miniatures are amazing: the gantries are endless complexes of iron beams, tiny vehicles move back forth in the shadows of the colossal rockets, and there is even the occasional movement of the miniscule workers. The scenes on the moon blend realism and surrealism with the tiny stop-motion explorers leaping across the lunar surface and the shot of Earth rising above the lunar crater prefigures one of the most famous images from the 'real' space-age. Not surprisingly, there is some geopolitical subtext to the film. The two rockets are named for prominent Soviet leaders Josef Stalin and Klim Voroshilov and the letters "CCCP" shine from the lunar surface as the astronauts signal their success to Earthbound observers (they also plant a flag but (realistically) it does not unfurl). In contrast to the often doctrinaire and joyless Soviet-era cinema, 'Cosmic Voyage' is a fun film with a number of whimsical scenes as the astronauts cavort in the weightless spaceship or occasionally summersault through the air as the jump around on the moon (apparently, such frivolousness got the film supressed by dour Soviet censors for a couple of decades). The film makes an excellent companion piece to Lang's 'Woman on the Moon' (1929), another outstanding pre-WWII silent 'hard' science fiction movie. Well worth watching for any science fiction or early cinema fan and the various commentaries/reviews that can be found on-line are quite interesting. *According to the translation in the version I watched on YouTube

Rather than be redundant with other reviews, I will simply say, Cosmic Journey (Kosmicheskii Reys: Fantasticheskaya - literally, Space Flights: A Fantastic Story) is an ntertaining, fascinating piece of cinematic & cultural history. As with many Soviet science fiction movies of later decades, such as Nebo Zovyot, aka The Sky Calls (1959), and Mechte Navstrechu, aka A Dream Come True (1963), Cosmic Journey is an optimistic vision of space exploration, both with regard to the endeavor itself, and with respect to camaraderie among Soviet citizens and scientists, even if there are initially disputes with respect to motives and methods.

As an aside, I ordered a copy of this movie from Amazon from a distribution company called Video Dimensions. It's a 2011 DVD. The picture has the kind of artifacts one would expect from an older, unrestored film, but it is nonetheless very passible. It is a silent movie even though it was released in 1936. The orchestral accompaniment doesn't seem to have been written for the movie, and seems to be instead needle drops of classical pieces. They are matched pretty well with the action though, so it works. Intertitles are in Russian with English subtitles.)

Hollywood may have eventually won the filmic space race with such early realistic sci-fi depictions of space travel as "Destination Moon" (1950), "Countdown," "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) and "Marooned" (1969)--since followed up by the likes of "Gravity" (2013), "Interstellar" (2014) and "The Martian" (2015), but the Soviets seem to have had an early lead in both this fictional space race and the real one if "Cosmic Voyage" is any indication. Although the Germans even before them led in science--and in the partially-realistic Moon movie with "Woman in the Moon" (1929)--the brain drain and wreckage from the Nazis eventually ceased that. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, father of modern rocketry and, thus, spaceflight, is credited as a consultant on this film, and it shows.

Consequently, the spaceship is launched by rockets--albeit guided by rails that make the endeavor look like a cross between a roller coaster ride and shooting the thing out of a cannon à la Georges Méliès's "A Trip to the Moon" (1902). The cosmonauts floating in space and on the Moon is handled well considering the only prior film I know of to depict weightlessness is "Woman in the Moon." The desolate depiction of the lunar surface appears relatively faithful thanks to an effective combination of confined full-scale sets with actors and stop-motion animation amid miniatures. The space suits that look like old-fashioned diving gear at least addresses the oxygen problem, and the use of radio solves the riddle of communication. There are also a couple of interesting ideas that never materialized in the real-world Moon voyages. The space explorers enter bath chambers to protect them from the bumpy takeoffs and landings, and they spell out "USSR" on the lunar surface to send a message seen through a telescope back to Earth (a rather clever text-based solution methinks for a silent film).

The futuristic Art Deco designs and the moving-camera shots of miniatures look nice, too, although the editing is sometimes choppy. More importantly, all of the space-travel sci-fi is curious stuff, but, unfortunately, the trivial narrative surrounding the trip to the Moon weights the cosmonaut adventure down. The first part of the film is wasted on a pointless rivalry over whether to travel to the Moon and who's to go, and this results in the spaceship basically being pirated by an elderly man (who's probably loosely based on Tsiolkovsky), his seemingly unprepared assistant and a stowaway kid. In fact, there are rather oddly quite a few children in the picture, which seems to be a result of the film's production being promoted by the communist youths of the Komsomol.

Thus, in "Cosmic Voyage," we have a silent, black-and-white moonshot compromised by interpersonal conflict and corruption and ultimately forced upon by a collective of kiddies, old kooks and other comrades. In the Technicolor "Destination Moon," the Americans' first response to this space race was that private industrialists would step in for a weak state. Compare these two films to the turn-of-the-century colonialist reflection of fighting primitive aliens on the Moon in the film by Méliès, and it becomes clear that these pictures of lunacy have as much, if not more, to say about the political climate in which they were made than with anything to do with realistic depictions of science and outer space. Even today, "First Man" (2018), based on the real moon landing, fell victim to a debate among critics and politicians between globalization and nationalism--mostly centered around the depiction or lack thereof of the American flag. Perhaps, they should've taken a page from their Cold War adversary and reflected the initials "USA" back to the lunatics.

I saw Kosmicheskii Reis with the 2006 DVD edition with English subtitles, entitled "The Space Voyage". This Russian edition had a new soundtrack to this silent film, which suited it very well.

The special effects alone on this film will astound anyone who has seen American SF serials from the same period, such as Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. This 1930s speculation amazes with its accuracy of prediction. Everything from the look of the rocket ships, to the weightlessness scene, weighted boots for moon walks, etc. Even most Hollywood depictions of space travel from the 1950s were not this well produced. Kosmicheskii Reis is a must-have for any serious SF collection, if you can find it! Hopefully we will see a nice box set of early Soviet SF cinema some day. This gem deserves the kind of restoration treatment that Fritz Lang's Metropolis has received.