Product: For All Mankind [VHS] (1989)
Rating: 5.0
The Debate Continues...
'For All Mankind' documents the Apollo space program and the attempt to land a person on the moon as a result of President Kennedy's historic commission.In some sense, this endeavor was initiated to show the capability of American technological prowess as a justification of our national way of life, but also as a kind of national symbol of scientific excellence for the first world.It is a sobering exercise to compare this film, which makes the positive case with the Philip Glass, Godfrey Reggio film 'Koyaanisqatsi', which makes the negative one.'Koyaanisqatsi' uses a space launch/crash in it's opening/closing sequences as a symbol of the "madness" of a country basing it's moral and social growth on the way of technology.'For All Mankind', for it's part, not only: A) Documents the special collaboration of the mission control crew. B) Shows a powerful and complex vehicle system making an impossible journey C) Features the profound meditations and humor of a variety of heroic astronauts ...but it also has a beautiful atmospheric score by the electronic musician Brian Eno and shows valuable film footage from taken from the rare perspective of outer space.Perhaps the jury might deliberate the film's fundamental premise, that technology as a way of life is of benefit to all mankind, for some time to come.