A century ago, on September 25, 1924, it premiered in Moscow Aelitaa pioneering work of science fiction cinematographic. This film, directed by Yakov Protazanov and based on the novel of the same name by Alexei Tolstoy, marked a milestone for being the first feature film that depicted space travel.
Thus, it opened the doors to a new genre, which has come capturing the imagination of generations. A precedent in the tradition that Aelita funda is the short film by Georges Meliés, trip to the moon (1902).
Protazanov was one of the most prominent filmmakers of the era of russian silent cinema and upon his return from exile in Europe he dedicated himself to innovating in the Soviet cinematographic field.
The action of the film begins in December 1921 in Petrograd, shortly after the end of the Civil War. Aelita focuses on large cities (in this case through the Martian telescope), three years before the celebrated film Metropolis of 1927.
On the other hand, Protazanov’s work, with a particular contrast of planes between the shoes of “the select people” and those of the humble, represents the social inequality of tsarist Russia.
The historical context of Aelita It is crucial to understand its impact. Russia in 1920 was in full reconstruction process after the October Revolution and the Civil War.
Cinema, under the sign of constructivism and futurism, became a tool for propaganda and artistic experimentation. Aelita It is part of these currents and uses space travel as a metaphor for social revolution and communist utopia.
The film takes place at that time when the country is devastated and the cities in the process of modernization are overflowing with hungry people. Engineers Los and Spiridonov receive a mysterious radio signal -“ANTA… ODELI… UTA…”- that they try to decipher. The imagination of the character of Los leads him to visualize the existence of a Martian civilization.
The film alternates images about what is happening on Earth and also what is happening on the red planet. Thus, the “Energy Manager” of Mars, Gor, invents a machine that allows observe terrestrial life. The ruler Tuskub forbids Gor to reveal anything, it is a state secret.
This planet has a slave system by which some lives are preserved while others are discarded or made available (stored). refrigerated martians and defrost them according to need).
An ancient form of government also operates on Mars, headed by a female queen, Aelitawho, always attentive, finds the machine and discovers a world: Earth. Between the series of images What he sees, he is fascinated by a loving scene: He is kissing his wife Natasha on the mouth. Since then, Aelita does everything not only to learn about these customs but to experience them.
On Mars, palace intrigues abound around the queen. They evoke the spirit of Shakespeare’s works, where power and its dynamics show that personal conflict and ambition They can influence the destiny of a kingdom.
When Tuskub detects the spacecraft arriving from Earth, orders to kill the earthlings. But Aelita intervenes, has the astronomer killed and receives the earthlings with honors. Aelita becomes the target of Los’s fascination.
Amidst all the noise caused by the arrival of new people on the planet, a revolt occurs in the workers’ neighborhood. And also at one point the public trusts that Aelita had the celebrants killed, but the plot is resolved with a known resource but it works perfectly: it had all been a dream, in which the radio signal was a simple tire advertisement and Natasha is alive.
The conclusion could be formulated like this: there are enough problems on Earth and it is not advisable to have dreams.
Advertising and propaganda
In relation to the advertising campaign, decisions were made that aroused great curiosity before projecting. In the press, without initial explanation, enigmatic advertisements appeared with the still unknown inscription “ANTA… ODELI… UTA…”.
The premiere at the Ars cinema in Moscow was a spectacular event, with musical accompaniment especially composed by Valentin Kruchinin. It was shown in sold-out sessions for a month, and then spread to other cities, such as Leningrad, Izhevsk and Kazan. However, the distribution outside Moscow faced problemssince some local distributors divided the film into two parts without warning, negatively affecting public reception.
The novel, written a year earlier by Tolstoy – which was also adapted by the Hungarian director András Rajnai, in 1980 – presents significant differences. Its tone is more adventurous and scientific and focuses on the exploration of the planet Mars, the encounter with its civilization and also the ending is not a dream.
Despite the success at the box office, Aelita was received coldly by Soviet critics, influenced by the negative perception towards the Mezhrabpom-Rus film company, considered “NEP” (New Economic Policy). This policy proposed by Lenin encouraged certain capitalist practices within the Soviet economy, which was viewed with suspicion by the most orthodox.
Aelita was not only a pioneer for its space theme, but also for its visual and narrative innovations. The depiction of Mars, with its constructivist architecture and extravagant costumes, deeply influenced the science fiction genre.
The film explored themes related to revolution and oppression, derived from the social and political tensions of the time. The visual effects, although primitive by modern standards, were revolutionary for their time.
The film used mockups and camera tricks to create the illusion of an interplanetary journeylaying the foundation for future special effects in cinema.
The superimpositions and editing techniques created a visually complex narrative, which alternated between earthly reality and Martian dreams, and today constitute a valuable contribution to the science fiction genre.
Although in the 1920s there were debates for and against the film due to its propaganda value, for its aesthetic complexity and about the possibility of exporting or not, with the passage of time, Aelita has been recognized as a science fiction classic and gained appreciation both in the Soviet Union and abroad.
The film left its mark on cinema (from the films of Fritz Lang to the space adventures of Hollywood in the 21st century), but also shaped imaginations of Mars in literature (Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, as a paradigmatic example), and fueled inspiration in the plastic-visual arts, it is special for constructivist designs.
Currently, Aelita It is studied in film schools and valued for its audacity and creativity.
The film, which travels at the same time through two planets, two planes, two women and two men, two plot levels (politics and artistic experimentation), two instances of the human (and Martian) experience such as sleep and wakefulness, is testimony of the power of cinema to aestheticize politics and politicize aesthetics, through the imagination of worlds, the treatment of universal themes mounted between fantasy, technology, the crossing of traditions and scientific speculation.
