Aelita. 1924. Directed by Yakov Protazanov.

(9/16/00)

I was disappointed in Aelita. I was under the impression that it is a film about a proletarian revolution on Mars. It's not. It's about an engineer named Los who has problems when a new boarder or tenant in his building takes a shine to his wife. In the midst of all of this he fantasizes about going to Mars and meeting its queen who is already infatuated with him from observing him on Earth through a telescope or something.

There acdtually is a revolution, but it only lasts for a few minutes and the workers are only being used by the queen to take power away from the elders. Afterwards she has the workers sent back to their underground abodes. Los then kills her, but it doesn't matter because it is only a fantasy.

He also shoots--or appears to shoot--his wife when he thought she was succumbing to the neighbors advances. At the end of the film he returns to her, making it seem that this was another fantasy. But it wasn't--because he tells her that he will be forever grateful that he missed.

The whole thing seems either convoluted (at best) or at worst confused. The film begins with a mysterious radio signal which seems to come from Mars. We never really learn what this is all about. The neighbor is involved in some critical activity which draws the attention of a policeman. I don't think we ever get to the bottom of that. In fact, it's worse than confused--it's plain tiresome.

Why would it be that the Queen of Mars isn't allowed to look at Earth through the telescope and must sneak around to get a peek?

Some of this is intended to be funny. The character of the bumbling policeman is intended to be comic as is some of the dialogue on Mars about revolution. They talk about creating a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Mars and when the queen offers to lead the workers there is a joke about "a boss leading the revolution?" And there is even an ad for tires which I think was meant as humor.

This film is a relic. It is of some interest as a major early Soviet film--the program quotes J. Hoberman as saying that it was the most publicized Soviet film before Potemkin--but the interest is exclusively historical. I didn't find it an enjoyable film to sit through.

At the end of the film engineer Los tears up his plans for a rocket to Mars and throws them in the fire, deciding that it is time to give up fantasy and concentrate on the important work that awaits. It seemed like a pretty good idea to me.