Friday, January 09, 2009

Aelita: Queen of Mars

Aelita: The Queen of Mars is a 1924 silent Russian film based on a novella by Alexei Tolstoy.

It's available at youtube in 9 parts. Part 1:

part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9

There are foreign and English inter-titles.

Silents are Golden
has quotes from some contemporary reviews. Images Journal has an article on the film.

I love the Martian costumes. Those hats! The Martian sets are fun, too. Not at all what I expected, they remind me a bit of some of the German expressionist films I've seen. The Mars scenes alternate with long scenes of Russia from the early 1920's, which are not nearly as interesting as Mars. Most of the film is life in Russia, a jealous husband, a detective on the trail of a murderer... The resolution is a huge let-down that I hadn't expected.

No comments:

Post a Comment