The 100th year anniversary of the Russian Revolution remains a hotly debated event, but there is no doubt about the enormous impact the cultural transformations the Revolution had on cinema. One of the highpoints of the aesthetic revolution is Yakov Protazanov’s 1924 sci-fi film, Aelita.
Protazanov was a successful Russian director prior to the revolution, working mainly in France and Germany post-revolution, but who was seduced to return to the Soviet Union in 1923 to make more commercial films.
There is something delightfully tongue-in-cheek about his version of a worker’s revolution on Mars that is seen in Aelita. It’s as though he goes through the motions of making Mars appear to be a metaphor for a socialist uprising, but the director can’t help himself in making the whole film appear to be a sophisticated melodrama with a knowing wink to the audience rather than a revolutionary call to arms.
The human pastime of kissing creates turmoil on Mars when Aelita spies this extraordinary practice and this in turn sows the seeds that blossom into revolution. The story is about a young Russian man who travels to Mars in a rocket ship where he leads a popular uprising against the ruling group of Elders with the support of Aelita Queen of Mars who has fallen in love with him after watching him through a telescope.
Although the story’s main focus is the daily lives of a small group of people coming to terms with life after the Civil War, the enduring importance of the film comes from its early science fiction elements. It is one of the earliest feature films about space travel with remarkable stage and costume designs that significantly influence a number of later sci-fi films, especially Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and the Flash Gordon serials.
The remarkable Aelita is screening on 5 November as the Sydney closing night of the Russian Resurrection Film Festival, with a fresh, new musical composition written and performed by the Volatinsky Quartet (Lucy Voronov, Anatoli Torjinsky, Stephen Lalor and Jess Champa) and devised by Nina Danko, Oleg Stusenko and Greg Dolgopolov.
This is the perfect way to mark the 100th year anniversary of the October Revolution.
7pm drinks followed by the screening at 7:30 Event Cinemas George Street. For more information, head to the website.
