Aelita

Plot synopsis:
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 Tsereteli), an engineer who is obsessed with the idea of going to Mars. This inspires him to daydream about Mars and a strange civilization there. We see Aelita (Yuliya Solntseva), the queen; Tuksib (Konstantin Eggert), the actual ruler; and Ilhoshka (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 Ehrlich (Pavel Pol), a bourgeoise 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 Erlich 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.
Spiridnov (Nikolai Tseretel again), an intellectual engineer and friend of Los's, is being quietly swindled by Ehrlich. He disappears; a would-be detective, Kratsov (Igor Ilyinsky) (who has been rejected by the police) suspects Spiridnov 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 Spiridnov with a wig, false beard and glasses, he goes into hiding and makes plan to escape to Mars in a rocketship he has been constructing. A friend of his, Gussev (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 Spiridnov and not realizing he's on a spaceship). Los confuses Kratsov by removing the disguise.
They land on Mars. Tuksub orders them killed, ignoring Aelita's pleas for their safety. Kratsov is taken before Tuksub and demands that the soldiers arrest the other two: he is promptly arrested. The chief astronomer comes to Aeilta and tells her where Los's ship has landed; she instructs her maid to kill him. The maid is arrested and sent to the slave's caves - Gussev, who has taken a fancy to her, follows.
Aelita and Los meet and fall in love, though Los occasionally sees her as Natasha (so do we). They are arrested and also sent to the caves.
Gussev tells the slaves of his own countries' revolution and foments a revolt, which Aelita takes command of. Tuksub 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's clear that all this is a daydream. Erlich is arrested for the murder of Spiridnov. A poster on a wall advertises a make of tyres - 'Anta Odeli Uta': the wireless message had been an advertisement. Los had not injured or killed Natasha and they make up: he burns his spaceship plans and promises to stop daydreaming.

Tags: good versus evil, psychedelic, murder

Review:
Certainly one of the more interesting and unique silent movies that you will see, "Aelita" is well worth watching despite its flaws.
It also has an interesting story that holds your attention and moves at a pretty good pace.Don't be automatically put off from seeing this film by the fact that everyone mentions the dose of silly Soviet propaganda that comes with the rest of it.
There are many other themes that are just as prominent, or more so - such as relationships and jealousy, fantasy and reality, real-life concerns versus idealistic projects.The dual settings of Moscow and Mars are used rather well, setting off the differences and similarities between the two societies and relating them to the concerns of the characters.
"Aelita" was screened as part of the National Film Theatre's science fiction season, but I can't help fearing that anyone who came to see it in the expectation of Martian adventures would probably have been very disappointed.
Intercut with this are the protagonist's imaginations of a stylised, balletic Mars, where the wilful figurehead Queen becomes fascinated with this alien Earthman she has never met; the more frustrating his day-to-day life becomes, the more he takes refuge in these plans and visions, and finally the two worlds become mingled entirely as he seeks escape in interplanetary flight.The obvious comparisons to make are with Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" and H.G.Wells' "Things to Come"; I have to say that I actually found "Aelita" as visually inventive in its science-fiction sections as either of these -- and considerably more enjoyable.
And it benefits from the well-worn tactic of introducing recognisably contemporary characters into its alien setting to serve as audience identification figures; the dream-structure also allows it to get away with a good deal in the way of events that seem oddly arbitrary or clichéd at the time, while explaining them later.
With hindsight I suspect that some of the revolutionary grandiloquence we laughed at was actually intended to be ridiculous (Protazanov had been a successful pre-revolutionary director who had only just been induced to return to Soviet Russia, and there is a striking sequence in "Aelita" where characters hark back wistfully to the 'old days'): the film has a good Soviet moral, but not the one you are led to expect, and it knows how to deflate the bubble of wild fantasy.Nikolai Tsereteli and Vera Kuindzhi make an attractive and sensitive leading couple as the engineer and his wife, although the latter suffers from the limitations of the orthochromatic film stock of this era which tends to bleach out blue eyes altogether, to occasionally grotesque effect.
I had heard that despite the subsequent 'socialist realist' image, much silent Soviet 'domestic' drama is in fact very good, and on the basis of this film this genre definitely seems worth a look.
Bizarre Russian sci-fi, socialist silent about a scientist who builds a rocketship, flies to Mars, and leads the Martian proletariat in a communist revolution.
_Aelita: Queen of Mars_ is a visually-interesting satura ("mish-mosh," "stew"), bringing together soap opera, political drama, romantic comedy, crime-drama + farce, science fantasy, and, finally dream-vision.The sequences set on Earth tell some rather, well, mundane stories of jealousy and political corruption, interesting for being set in Moscow during the hungry years around 1924 and having the villain a minor Soviet official.(Caution, though: the villain's name is spelled "Erlich" in the titles on the Kino re-issue of the film.
If the name is "Ehrlich," Comrade Minor Official may be of German descent and the film more newfangled in trashing insufficiently Russified German-Soviets [who are also aristocrats and Bosheviks].)The scenes on Mars are much more interesting, visually.As David A.
Cook states in his _History of Narrative Film_ (a standard film-course text), the Martian sets are "designed completely in the Constructivist style."  They follow the principles of Vsevelod Meyerhold in trying to create "a machine for acting": which works here in producing a futuristic vision that was to go on to the FLASH GORDON series and other visually classic works of High Modernism.There's also imagery of a Mechanized Underworld and Mechanical Hive: ideas that don't go back beyond H.
It was not even a surprise that this dream comes true."Aelita" (1924) ,directed by Herr Yakov Protazanov, was the U.S.S.R.'s first science-fiction film and was a notable success and became known even beyond the frontiers of Russia.
Even the queen of Mars, Aelita (Frau Yuliya Solntseva) will get involved as she falls desperately in love with the Terrestrial Bolshevist, our hero, the engineer Losi ( Herr Nikolai Tsereteli ).
Thus, the red planet must become truly red.The part of the film set in Mars astonishes even a German count with its particular costumes and sets, designed by Frau Alexandra Exter and Herr Isaac Rabinovich ( this Herr Von must add that Herr Protazanov's cinematographic background was influenced by European early avant-garde; he worked in Germany and France before the Bolshevists asked him to return to Russia) .
As this German count said before, the film combines science-fiction with a down to earth story that reflects the daily hardships of the Moscow citizens trying to make a living at the beginning of the 20's.
Overall, the film is a successful combination of realism, comedy and science fiction; surely, one doesn't expect all this from those rude Bolsheviks.And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must return to the aristocratic earthly world.Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com.
Aelita is a science fiction film that features the first space travel by earthlings: Destination Mars.
Meanwhile Mars' Queen, Aelita, (Yuliya Solntseva) has discovered that some of her scientists have created a telescope device that can watch the detailed life on planet Earth.
She immediately falls in love with him and finds it hard to concentrate during her Martian day while constantly thinking about that man on earth....In Mars they are all perfectly dressed in elaborate costumes that include a helmet- and-mask device for the slaves and delicate transparent plastic layers, headdresses and arm decorations for the upper class, in a very chic-futuristic look which must have influenced the bold designs of Paco Rabanne in metal and plastics a full forty years later.
These outfits are quite extraordinary for being the first in this genre and are much more detailed and visually interesting than the ones in Metropolis, where only the robot is really fashioned in futuristic style.Aelita looks gorgeous, beautifully dressed and wears a striking headdress that is most becoming, though a little cumbersome when she begs him to "unite our lips, like they do on earth" for the first red-hot kiss on Mars.
You may find yourself fast-forwarding the slower scenes in Soviet Russia that look particularly dim by comparison to Mars.There is also an episode, almost surreal in the way it interjects into the Russian reality plot, where a worker breaks his chains and fashions the hammer and sickle symbol.
Aelita is the nominal Queen of Mars, but it is really ruled by a council of elders, who enslave the Martian workers underground (as in Metropolis).
A Russian engineer builds a space craft, flies to Mars and inspires a revolution with the help of a Soviet soldier.Interesting and famous as early science fiction.
Although it gets billed as a front for Soviet propaganda, this film seems to be outstanding in relationship to the time it wasmade and its phenomenal use of set design and productionvalues.
In real life, his wife Natacha takes care of refugees.One of the earliest full-length films about space travel, the most notable part of the film remains its remarkable constructivist Martian sets and costumes designed by Aleksandra Ekster.
Their influence can be seen in a number of later films, including the Flash Gordon serials and probably Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" and "Woman in the Moon".For any science fiction fan, this is a must-see.
Although it gets billed as a front for Soviet propaganda, this film seems to be outstanding in relationship to the time it was made and its phenomenal use of set design and production values.
"Aelita, Queen of Mars" is a silent film from 1924 filmed in Russia.
The Martian sets are abstract enough to be interesting, and I think that Aelita's costume is meant to indicate a third breast.
Why would someone want to name his/her baby after a villain, who despite having only one eyebrow, apparently has 3 breasts???The only interesting thing here is the sets and costumes for the Mars scenes.
The sci-fi part of the film was very interesting and fantastic for its time, but i'm not sure if it was due to the fact it was shown directly after the Brilliant 1928 "The Wind" or if it seemed that Russian filmmakers take after what Russian novels are famous for (hundreds of characters, tangled plots) but I know for certain that the dramatic parts, as in the parts on Earth, made absolutely no sense, were boring and I became lost within about twenty minutes.
This certainly is no "Battleship Potemkin", however I will say that Russian films do not make a real good effort in lightning up what life in Russia is like..
Hailed as the first science fiction film from Russia, it depicts the social economy in Russia during 1924, and compares it to the Martian capitalist society that is watching from the Red Planet in the sky.
On Mars, The Queen, Aelita, has discovered that some of her scientists have created a telescope that can watch the planet Earth up close.
After TRIP TO THE MOON (1902), only HIMMELSKIBET (1918) and FRAU IM MOND (1928) are the only titles, along with AELITA (1924) in the silent science fiction section of my video library.Aelita (Yuliya Solntseva) is a Frida Kahlo-like queen from Mars with unibrow and spectacular costumes!
He directed his first silent features before the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and was undoubtedly most prominent Russian filmmaker before Sergey Eisenstein.With Aelita back then young Russian cinema tried to rival foreign European and American productions, a competition that resulted in the big spectacle, which Aelita is with its big production values but obviously propagandistic story, fit in what is basically a Sci-fi film attempting to proliferate communist ideas.
It's about a young scientist Los, who is living with his wife Natasha and is already for several years is working on a project of a spaceship capable of going to Mars, while on a background of Russian Civil War occurs with all its destruction, hunger and, of cause, accentuated by the communist propaganda class struggle, which is shown in a character of Ehrlich who represents an old kind of persona with its obsolete bourgeoisie values of already dead Tsarist Russia, showed opposed to a 'new man' of adhered to communist ideals soldier of the Red Army Gussev.
It's from there that Martian princess Aelita observes the life of other characters in Russia and develops a sort of attraction to them and their way of life.The film culminates when finally Los' project is brought to life and expedition is sent to Mars, causing there upon arrival a slave uprising and revolution, which results in no more nor less than in peaking of communist propaganda element in the story in a form of establishing of the Soviet Socialist Republics of Mars!
He was persuaded to return to the new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1923, and he directed "Aelita: Queen of Mars" which is probably the first soviet movie and may be the first soviet science fiction film as well.
I think part of the purpose of "Aelita" is to warn state bureaucrats not to turn to corruption, as a corrupt official is shown being investigated for his crimes.I would say the foundation of "Aelita" is showing the daily lives of regular people after the Russian Civil War as they try to rebuild the country into the Soviet Union, as seen by Lenin and the Communist Party.
After many, many twists and turns of plot, our hero finally takes off from earth and lands on Mars, where he leads a revolution.One of the faults of "Aelita" is its many subplots, and they take up a significant amount of time, leading to a movie that nears two hours in length.
The movie is too long, too convoluted with subplots, but it remains interesting as a picture of life after the Russian Civil War. Nikolai Tsereteli is Los, Yuliya Solntseva plays the queen of his dreams, and Valentina Kuindzhi plays Natasha Los, his wife in the all too real world of 1924 Soviet Union.
The film attains a gorgeous picture of Soviet Union, and the world, and how it was like in the year of 1924.The frame-story, which equals most of the film, builds a great picture of the Soviet society: full trains, a decadent night club, and the new culture; posters, agitprop (Department for Agitation and Propaganda) elements and the orphanage in which the engineer's wife works at.
Most current interest in this 1920s Soviet silent movie focuses on its sci-fi sub-plot of a trip that three Earthmen make to Mars where they are promptly embroiled in Martian politics and one of them, a revolutionary called Gusev (Nikolai Batalov), inspires the oppressed Martian workers to rebel against their despotic king and replace him with his daughter who is equally tyrannical.
This sub-plot is part of a broad melodrama about an engineer called Los (Nikolai Tsereteli) who fluctuates between an erotic fantasy life revolving around an exotic aristocrat woman who worships him from afar and his real life in which his wife Natasha (Valentina Kuindzhi), neglected by him, has an affair with a rich foreigner, Ehrlich (Pavel Pol).Los's fantasy about the woman Aelita (Yulia Solntseva) begins when he and his colleague Spiridonov (Tsereteli again) receive mysterious radio transmissions from afar which can't be translated into Russian and someone in their department jokingly suggests the messages might be from Mars.
Most of the movie's running time flits from Los's work ,which among other things involves volunteer work on an engineering project in the Soviet Far East and in his spare time constructing a spaceship capable of flying to Mars with Spiridonov, to Natasha working at a refugee centre, then an orphanage, and flirting with Ehrlich, to other sub-plots which include Gusev's on-again/off-again relationship with his wife and an investigation of Natasha's shotgun murder by the comically inept detective Kravtsov (Igor Ilyinsky).
There is also a sub-plot that focuses on one man's attempt to cheat on the food-rationing system used in Moscow which calls audiences' attention to the economic and social plight of ordinary people in Russia at the time the film was made.All this means that "Aelita " can be a bewildering experience for first-time viewers unfamiliar with the immediate post-1917 situation in the Soviet Union before Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920′s.
Several sub-plots are Los's daydreams which the film deliberately doesn't separate from what happens to the engineer in real life so the narrative, and in particular the ending, can be very confusing to watch.
This particular moment in the film serves perhaps as a warning of what could happen to the Soviet government, that it might fall into a similar autocratic style of government as the previous Tsarist government: a prophetic message indeed.Los realises his fantasy about Aelita comes to nothing but chaos, which might make viewers wonder whether it really is a fantasy that he has or something that actually happened to him.
Fantasising about flying to Mars as a way of escaping humdrum reality and the work involved in maintaining a marriage (and by extension, maintaining a community, especially a new revolutionary community) certainly won't help to bring about equality and prosperity for everyone.The film's production values are very impressive: in particular the Martian sets, influenced by the Russian avantgarde art movement Constructivism with its emphasis on abstract geometric shapes and figures, look very futuristic and in some scenes are monumental.
Ultimately for most people the main value of "Aelita " will be in its sets and design but for students of propaganda and Soviet history, the film has a great deal to say about the difference between fantasy and reality.
The majority of the film is set in Moscow although some scenes do take place in Mars, particularly the event where the protagonists starts a proletarian revolution.
Considered the first Russian science-fiction movie, Aelita can be viewed as a combination of dream and reality, an intricate portrayal of different worlds and different topics.
On the other hand, the movie has its flaws and one can only wonder how this promising work could have been handled by merely simplifying the overly-complex plot.Loss, a Russian engineer who is obsessed by deciphering an intercepted radio message, portrays the typical scientist whose dream is to conquer the planet Mars.One of the interesting features of this film is the nice blend of the fictional world with the complicated outer reality of marriage and Russian society.
In this movie, it seems like the producers KNOW the Communists have truly screwed up the country, but also seems to want to make it look like they've accomplished something good.Then we get to the "Martian" scenes, where everyone on Mars wears goofy hats.
The "Queen of Mars", who in the book was supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the universe, looks like a teenage boy.At the worst possible point, the film devolves into Soviet propaganda, complete with burning letters for the date of their revolution 10/25/17 and a hammer and sickle.
In other words, Soviet propaganda is THE reason for the film and this makes viewing a real chore for the average viewer, though historically hearing all the pro-Communist rhetoric is interesting.
This really hinders the film as it's such obvious propaganda and very preachy as well.As for Mars, Aelita is the queen of the planet, but she really has no power.
In fact, when the humans do come to Mars, they spend their time fomenting revolution--turning the Martian proletariat into good Communists.