Aelita, Queen of Mars

The most celebrated Soviet film until Battleship Potemkin, and perhaps second only to Metropolis as the most influential science fiction movie of the silent era, the exotic, extravagant Aelita —the world’s first-ever feature film about interplanetary travel — is a jaw-dropping stunner of Constructivist decor and costume. Based on a novel by Alexei Tolstoy, and directed by the prolific Jakov Protazanov, the film tells the story of a half-mad Moscow engineer who murders his wife and then flees, in a rocket of his own invention, to Mars. Along for the ride are a young Red Army soldier and the bungling detective investigating the murder. They find Mars ruled by the autocratic but seductive Queen Aelita, whom the engineer promptly falls for, while the soldier attempts to foment a Soviet-style revolution. The fast-paced comic plot takes a backseat to the out-of-this-world design; the fantastical futuristic sets are by Isaak Rabinovich, the equally amazing cubist costumes by Alexandra Exter. Acting great Nikolai Batalov makes his film debut here as the young soldier. The title character is played by Yulia Solntseva, who later married master filmmaker Alexander Dovzhenko and became a director herself. Hundreds of Soviet babies are said to have been named Aelita in the year of the film’s release. B&W, DVD, silent with English intertitles and musical score. 111 mins.

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This screening of Aelita, Queen of Mars is presented in conjunction with the Contemporary Art Gallery’s exhibition Robert Orchardson - Endless façade, the first exhibition in Canada of work by the British artist. Inspired by science fiction and the work of architects and designers who engage with ways of thinking about the future, Orchardson’s work is also aware of the inherent paradoxes in visualizing the unknown, any attempt immediately foiled as it becomes instantly familiar and unavoidably speaks to us of the here and now. Endless façade is an ambitious new installation which revisits otherworldly and much-criticized stage sets designed by Isamu Noguchi in 1955 for a Royal Shakespeare Company production of King Lear; the installation also formally references Aelita.

Robert Orchardson - Endless façade
Contemporary Art Gallery - 555 Nelson Street, Vancouver
November 18, 2011 - January 15, 2012

Open Wednesday to Sunday, 12:00 to 6:00 pm / Free Entry
www.contemporaryartgallery.ca