Eolomea [GDR 1972]

Eolomea
Director: H. Zschoche
Cinematographer: G. Jaeuthe

A utopian exploration of human values, this is the third science fiction film made in the GDR. According to the head of special effects, it was influenced by Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey'; but while the special effects may have been more sophisticated than previous DEFA efforts, the quality of directing unfortunately leaves something to be desired.

Like Pirogov, this film is mainly about exalting the values of scientific inquiry. But it is unlike that film in many other ways. First, the exaltation is done through a metaphor; the unknown is represented by a distant star, which people have dreamed about visiting but could not, for lack of technical capacity and courage. Second, rather than a nationalist message like that of Pirogov, this film has a distinctly internationalist message; the Earth of the future seems to be a utopian place, along the lines of the earlier film 'The Silent Star', where all peoples are equally represented on the international science council (incidentally under UN auspices it seems), most of whose members are non-white. We are also told that on Earth, most people can expect to have a nice house and their own helicopter. Third, science is here portrayed not in the same simplistic way, but as in fact an enterprise requiring great human sacrifice and suffering, one which engenders a basic conflict within mankind.

That basic conflict is the conflict between the comfort of remaining with what we know (Earth)--falling asleep in the sun on the Galapagos islands--and risking everything to venture out into the unknown, which is cold and dreadful. A strength of the plot of this film is the way in which every character seems to hate being in space, except perhaps for one man, the leader of the expedition to the supposed planet, whose main strength in his conviction is that he has never been to Earth, but rather entirely grown up on a space station. The protagonist envies him having never seen rivers and lakes, because it stops him going through the torment of the others. And the older generation--his father--would rather go back to Earth with him, stay with what is comfortable and known. But the younger generation must go on, must continue to explore, even if it means risking everything.

In that way this film is certainly not simplistic; there is no triumphalism at the end, but rather a recognition that the conflict has not been resolved, but has simply given way to one side, even if it is the side we happen to be proud of. And the conflict plays itself out on Earth in the form of many officials who do not want the mission to go ahead because it is too risky, though in the end when it does, everyone applauds. Somehow the backdrop of the utopian Earth makes this into a more timeless story; for it is not a story about class, society, or anything like that, but rather about some kind of enduring human virtue of the sacrifice of comfort in the name of reaching some possible, but improbable new level of knowledge. And ultimately, it is expressed in the form of 'people finding each other'--i.e. finding the people on the other planet--that is that the knowledge they seek is not simply cold knowledge of the universe but rather the knowledge of others like themselves.

What is unfortunate about this film is the rather cheesy directing style, particularly in the flashback and fantasy scenes on the Galapagos. Clearly these are intentionally exaggerated, as they are meant to be exaggerated memories and fantasies rather than a literal depiction. Nevertheless, they are just a bit too exaggerated, at least for a Western audience. One shouldn't really be feeling the urge to laugh at something which is obviously supposed to play a fairly serious symbolic role in the film. And there are other places in the film where one thinks that it cannot stylistically decide not to be a cheesy 1950s sci-fi film rather than what it seems to want to be, which is something like a more stylistically serious, post-Kubrick film. I will not say the directing is awful, but it is a bit thin at times.

According to the special effects man, this film was intended to be part of a series which was stopped after this one because it was too utopian. He says in an interview that utopian films, lacking as they are in social conflict and tension, do not have the element of suspense that DEFA felt was necessary to make films that were interesting to people. So precisely because of its depiction of a utopian future, he says it was the last in the series. An interesting point; after all, one might think that depictions of communism would be desired every so often in socialist mass media. On the other hand, this film really doesn't portray the implicitly communist world much at all. It focuses more on what seem to be eternal human dilemmas, or perhaps dilemmas that have just been eternal since the advent of science. That kind of rumination in itself is rather apolitical, and if anything there is a mature assessment here of some of the kinds of problems that will be faced still by any future society, no matter how utopian.

In any case, while the film is hurt by at times rather weak directing, and while it is stylistically a bit of a hodgepodge at times, it does contain an interesting exploration of certain aspects of human psychology. And it is interesting for its viewpoint on science, as something altogether more human, more conflictual, more requiring of sacrifice than it has sometimes been depicted; and yet precious all the same.