Aelita, Yakov Protazanov, Soviet Union, 1924, 120’
The film being presented is a true Russian classic of the silent era, and one of the first science fiction features in the history of the cinema. Los is a young man who travels to Mars in a rocket and becomes the leader, along with queen Aelita, of a popular uprising against the king. The analogy of this fable with Russian history is clear and the political reading that can be made of it is one of the clear features of this film. But Aelita stands out for its overwhelming imagination and visual solutions: the costumes and scenery are authentic “Martian” constructivism. Done by Aleksanndra Ekster, they foreshadowed and strongly influenced the futurism of Fritz Lang in Metrópolis (1927), and the expressionist currents of German cinema of the late 1920s.
Yakov Protazanov’s "Aelita" , a true Russian classic of the silent era, and one of the first science fiction features in the history of the cinema.