| Aelita: Queen of Mars | |
|---|---|
 Yulia Solntseva as Aelita | |
| Directed by | Yakov Protazanov |
| Written by | Fedor Ozep |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Emil Schünemann Yuri Zhelyabuzhsky |
Production company | |
Release date |
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Running time | 113 minutes |
| Country | Soviet Union |
| Languages | Silent film Russian intertitles |
Aelita (Russian:Аэли́та,pronounced[ɐɛˈlʲitə]), also known asAelita: Queen of Mars, is a 1924 Sovietsilentscience fiction film directed byYakov Protazanov and produced at theMezhrabpom-Rus film studio. It was based onAlexei Tolstoy's 1923novel of the same name.Nikolai Tseretelli andValentina Kuindzhi were cast in leading roles.
Though the main focus of the story are the daily lives of a small group of people during thepost-civil warSoviet Russia, the film's enduring importance comes from its early sci-fi elements. It primarily tells of an engineer Mstislav Sergeyevich Los (Russian:Лось) traveling toMars in a rocket ship, where he leads a popular uprising against the ruling group of Elders, with the support of Queen Aelita who has fallen in love with him after watching him through atelescope. In its performances in the cinemas inLeningrad,Dmitri Shostakovich played on the piano the music he provided for the film.
In the United States,Aelita was edited and titled byBenjamin De Casseres for release in 1929 asAelita: Revolt of the Robots.
Moscow, 1921. A mysterious wireless message is received by various stations: its text is 'Anta Odeli Uta'. Someone facetiously suggests it has come from Mars in order to tease Los (Nikolai Tseretelli), an engineer who is obsessed with the idea of going to Mars. This inspires him to daydream about Mars and a strange civilization there. The Martians include Queen Aelita (Yuliya Solntseva); Tuskub (Konstantin Eggert), the actual ruler; and Ikhoshka (Aleksandra Peregonets), Aelita's mischievous maid. They live in a society where aristocrats rule over slaves who are confined underground and put into cold storage when not required.
Los's wife Natasha (Valentina Kuindzhi) is pestered by Erlikh (Pavel Pol), a bourgeois playboy before the revolution who is now a dishonest minor official. He uses his connections to steal a large amount of sugar with the intention of selling it on the black market. Los, who has seen Erlikh making up to Natasha but has not seen her rejecting him, becomes jealous.
Los continues to daydream: he imagines that Aelita has access to a telescope by which she can see people on Earth and has become attracted to him.
Spiridonov (Nikolai Tseretelli again), an intellectual engineer and friend of Los's, is being quietly swindled by Erlikh. He disappears; a would-be detective, Kratsov (Igor Ilyinsky) (who has been rejected by the police) suspects Spiridonov to be guilty of the theft of the sugar, because of his disappearance.
Los's jealousy gets out of control and he shoots Natasha. Disguising himself as Spiridonov with a wig, false beard and glasses, he goes into hiding and makes a plan to escape to Mars in a rocket ship he has been constructing. A friend of his, Gusev (Nikolai Batalov), an ex-soldier, agrees to go with him. They take off, not knowing at first that Kratsov has stowed away (thinking he has been following Spiridonov and not realizing he is on a spaceship). Los confuses Kratsov by removing the disguise.
They land on Mars. Tuskub orders them killed, ignoring Aelita's pleas for their safety. Kratsov is taken before Tuskub and demands that the soldiers arrest the other two: he is promptly arrested. The chief astronomer comes to Aelita and tells her where Los's ship has landed; she instructs her maid to kill him. The maid is arrested and sent to the slaves' caves – Gusev, who has taken a fancy to her, follows.
Aelita and Los meet and fall in love, though Los occasionally sees her as Natasha (so does the audience). They are arrested and sent to the caves.
Gusev tells the slaves of his own country's revolution and foments a revolt, which Aelita takes command of. Tuskub is overthrown and the army sides with Aelita. She commands them to fire on the workers and herd them back to the caves – she intends to rule Mars herself. Disgusted, Los kills Aelita (seeing her as Natasha as he does so).
Suddenly back on Earth, it is clear that all this is a daydream. Erlikh is arrested for theft. A poster on a wall advertises a maker of tires – 'Anta Odeli Uta': the wireless message had been an advertisement. Los had not injured or killed Natasha; he burns his spaceship plans and promises to stop daydreaming.
In 2014Aleksandr Ignatenko [ru] published the bookAelita as the First Attempt to Create a Blockbuster in Russia in which he describes a massive advertising campaign before the screening and argues thatAelita had all features of ablockbuster.[2]
About half a year before the screening of the film the newspaperКино-Газета [Cinema Newspaper] started publishing advertisements with a weird text "АНТА… ОДЭЛИ… УТА…" [ANTA… ODELI… UTA…]. Some time later these started to be accompanied with the "explanation" that the radio stations all over the world started receiving a mysterious signal. As the premiere neared the official Communist Party newspaperPravda published the signal as a more transparent hint:Anta… odELI… uTA…, and finally it was incorporated into the advertisement of the premiere.[3]
While popular with the public,Aelita was out of favor with critics, who declared it ideologically improper.[4]
Frederik Pohl noted that the sole Soviet space film worthy ofAelita appeared half a century later:Andrei Tarkovsky’sSolaris.[5]
In a retrospective on Soviet science fiction, British filmmakerAlex Cox remarking onBFI Southbank's celebration of "Eastern Bloc science fiction" calledAelita "Strangest of these [...] in which the human pastime of kissing creates turmoil on the red planet."[6]
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One of the earliest full-length films aboutspace travel, the most notable segment remains its remarkableconstructivist Martian sets by Isaac Rabinovich andVictor Simov and costumes designed byAleksandra Ekster.[7] Their influence can be seen in a number of later films, including theFlash Gordon serials and probablyFritz Lang'sMetropolis andWoman in the Moon and the more recentLiquid Sky.[citation needed]
Parts of the plot were loosely adapted for the 1951 filmFlight to Mars.[8]
J. Hoberman ofThe Village Voice wrote that the 1960 American filmBeyond the Time Barrier "suggests an impoverished remake" ofAelita.[9]
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