Retrospective: Stars Systems
Before landing in the month of Mars, we offer you in February a constellation of films about space. After last year’s ride on the bicycle so dear to Armstrong (Lance), we will now take a trip to the Moon that was so dear to another Armstrong (Neil), a voyage to that stellar suburb so delightfully presented in 1985 by Stéphane Drouot1, a veritable shooting star in the universe of French short film.
In Creature Comforts by Nick Park, the puma, in its cage, speaking with a South American accent so thick you could cut it with a light saber, repeatedly demanded, “Space, I need space!” We heard him, so we will go and see if the grass is indeed greener on the other side of the solar system. Sandwiched2 between having our feet on earth and our gaze fixed upon the clouds and beyond, mankind never ceased to dream of these stellar journeys, and finally succeeded thanks firstly to our poetic genius, and secondly to our technological genius, even if sometimes, Houston, we have a problem!
Creature Comforts by Nick Park (United Kingdom – 1989)
But what can we really film in space? Stories of solitude of course, where weightlessness relieves man of his physical weight but not of his psychological weight. On the contrary, space, this infinite and hostile environment, forces us to be in a constant state of alertness where survival is our ultimate goal. Space is the new Far West where the few protagonists all exercise the same diligence. Watch out for that black hole! Poor lonesome astronauts!
These tales from this weightless world reveal not only the violence of social rapports, insanity, savagery, even cannibalism, but also a bit of love and humor. In the end, filmmakers leave for space in order to better film the world, our world, Planet Earth.
All of this would remain largely incomplete if we were not to mention the ultimate quest: the search for life elsewhere! Whereas racism and ostracism unfortunately remain common notions among today’s Earthlings, we cannot help but smile about this obsession to find alien life. For example, E.T., an acronym that arrives from the skies in another kind of acronym, a U.F.O., is an example of an ugly yet kind extraterrestrial capable of bringing a fleeting, compassionate tear to our eyes. However, let’s not kid ourselves. We’d be happier if E.T. went home and left our cows alone. Yes, man likes to frighten himself, but not too much. Man dreams of these encounters of the third, even hoping to be spirited away like a young girl by her Prince Charming. Cinema likes romance. Of course, things can turn south, but that evokes an entirely different category where the nice E.T. becomes the alien. And aliens are not always the most delicate of creatures!
So, without beating the drums or tooting our trumpets, which were so dear to yet another Armstrong (Louis), we can assure you that this space retrospective will paradoxically be a breath of fresh air.
Lest thou lift up thine eyes to the heavens… how true!
Antoine Lopez
- Stéphane Drouot made only one short film before passing away in 2012. The film, Star Suburb: la banlieue des étoiles, won the 1984 Clermont-Ferrand Grand Prix.
- Sandwich: One small loaf for man, one giant ham for mankind
Coucou-les-Nuages by Vincent Cardona (France 2010)
