Tag: Russia
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Cosmonauts at the British Science Museum
The only mildly interesting scene in that otherwise steaming heap of found-footage nonsense Apollo 18 is when the US astronauts stumble across the Soviet LK Lunar lander sitting in a crater. The real thing was flown unmanned in orbit but never made it to its final destination. Lack of co-ordination and investment in a launch […]
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Soviet Space Art
Last week I was working in Russia. I attended a conference in Tver, halfway between Moscow and St Petersburg where I was set on fire. I was also asked to be one of the judges for a final graduation film for one of the students at the All Russian Cinematography University (VGIK for short). As a […]
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White Tiger (2012)
Spoiler Alert – if you haven’t seen the film and plan on doing so, watch it first then read this. This is a very odd Russian symbolist fantasy set during the Second World War, and based very loosely on Moby Dick. After a battle on the Eastern Front a tank driver is found with 90% […]
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Nicholas Roerich – Eldritch Artist
When I was in Moscow I got the chance to visit the Nicholas Roerich Art Museum. Roerich lived in the early half of the twentieth century and was part of a movement that revolutionised Russian painting. He was keenly interested in spiritualism and tried to found a new religion for the 20th century based on […]
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Road to the Stars
The British Space artist David A. Hardy has just re-released, on DVD, the rare Soviet 1957 film Road to the Stars, directed by Pavel Klushantsev. It’s available from his website, The Astroart of David Hardy for £9.50. The documentary begins with the work of the Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolovsky, credited as the Russian father of rocketry, […]
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Aelita, Queen of Mars. 1924
Silent Science Fiction movies are understandably dominated by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) which is a truly astounding piece of German Expressionist film. Two years before the Soviet director Yakov Protazanov, made Aelita, Queen of Mars, based on the novel of the same name by the writer Alexei Tolstoi. While not on the same level as […]