Aelita, Queen of Mars

It became the victim of a critical backlash (too much capitalist wishy-washying) and was quietly withdrawn from circulation soon after its bombastic premiere opening, featuring larger-than-life models of Aelita's characters outside the cinemas and advance hype of the highest order.

Soon even the rumour of it faded into obscurity, yet some remembered. The Soviet State Film archives didn't destroy the negative (apparently, they have preserved everything, however subversive!) Aelita was still mentioned fleetingly during the years (John Grierson tried to aquire a copy) but not until Glasnost was it released to new audiences. And now it's on DVD.

This is a film you will want to see just once. Oh, you can probably return to it and watch individual scenes, but I myself wouldn't ever want to see the entire film again. It's badly directed and the story is complete hokum. The special effects are perfunctory. Just take a peek at that lens or telescope the Martians use to watch life on earth. Whoever conceived that one? When Aelita looks into the telescope, it's from a distance of 50cm from the ocular, which means she can't see anything at all. The space-ship looks like a pot bellied boiler from the Titanic.
I've seen much better effects in other films from the 20ies.

The planet Mars, however, is imaginatively rendered and the costumes and make-up are a sight to behold! Check out those hair-dos!

The scenes from earth are interesting. Not for the melodramatic story, but the social aspect of it. Post-revolutionary Soviet had great housing and food supply problems and this features strongly in Aelita. If only they had got rid of that terrible counter-revolutionary villain and his obnoxious wife, Aelita would have been so much better.

Buy it only if you want to support the release of old silents on DVD, or is an avid collector of all things rare and silent.

The movie starts with radios around the world receiving a mysterious transmission. It is decided that the signal is from Mars (for no apparent reason), and a Russian scientist (Loss) decides that he will build a spaceship to travel there. (Title card: ?[Loss] works all night to construct a spaceship to take him there?!) Meanwhile, Aelita, the queen of Mars, uses a viewing device to watch the people of Earth. She sees Loss and falls madly in love with him (so much for long courtship). At the same time, we are shown the struggles of the Soviet people in the early days of Communism and a group of conspirators who prey upon the simple hardworking Soviet citizens. One of these conspirators tries to seduce Loss? wife over to the ways of the old (capitalist) society. Loss becomes enraged when he believes that his wife has cheated on him and kills her. He must now use his rocketship to escape from the law. He takes off in his craft with a Soviet soldier, Gussev, as his traveling companion (a police detective in pursuit of Loss also stows away). When they arrive on Mars, they find that the rulers there (including Aelita) are tyrants that enslave and torture the common people. Led by Gussev, the people stage a revolt to put down the tyrants and establish a socialist society on Mars. Loss kills Aelita then awakens to find that it was all a dream and that he had never traveled to Mars and that he had never shot his wife. He discovers that she did not really cheat on him and the two are reunited.

The movie is essentially a Marxist parable. It shows people who have lost faith in the ideals of the revolution but eventually are swayed back to the side of socialism. In this sense, it a less of a cinematic feature and more of a propaganda tool. It is an interesting piece of movie history though. It is an early attempt at science fiction and an interesting window into the nascent Soviet Republic. The special effects are so-so, but hey, this was made in 1924. The cubist imagery used to depict the Martian society is fascinating. And the spacecraft used to travel to Mars is actually based on sound scientific principles. It is a liquid fuel propelled rocket, though it is bloated and unwieldy in appearance. Tracking in at almost two hours (111 minutes), the movie is daunting at times even for the most dedicated of viewers. But still I would say it is worth the effort for sci fi and movie historians.

Unfortunately, the DVD version contains no additional features. It would have been interesting to see some information on early Russian cinema.