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Overview
User Rating:
Director:
Writers:
Aleksei Fajko (writer)
Fyodor Otsep (writer)
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Release Date:
25 September 1924 (Soviet Union) more
Plot:
This is called the first Soviet science fiction film because of its "futuristic" sets on Mars, although most of it takes place in Moscow... more | add synopsis
User Comments:
A visually-interesting "satura" (mish-mosh). more (20 total)
Cast
(Cast overview, first billed only) | Yuliya Solntseva | ... | Queen Aelita |
| Igor Ilyinsky | ... | Kravtsov, amateur sleuth) |
| Nikolai Tsereteli | ... | Los & Spiridinov, 2 engineers |
| Nikolai Batalov | ... | Gusev, ex-soldier |
| Vera Orlova | ... | Masha, nurse, Gusev's fiancee |
| Valentina Kuindzhi | ... | Natasha Los (as Vera Kuindzhi) |
| Pavel Pol | ... | Ehrlich |
| Konstantin Eggert | ... | Tuskub - ruler of Mars |
| Yuri Zavadsky | ... | Gor, guardian of the energy |
| Aleksandra Peregonets | ... | Ihoshka, Aelita's maidservant maid of mars |
| Sofya Levitina | ||
| Varvara Massalitinova | ||
| Mikhail Zharov | ||
| Tamara Adelheim | ||
| Iosif Tolchanov | ... | Bearded astronomer on Mars |
Additional Details
Also Known As:
Аэлита (Soviet Union: Russian title)
Aelita: Queen of Mars (International: English title)
Revolt of the Robots (International: English title)
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Parents Guide:
Runtime:
Netherlands:67 min | 100 min (video version) | Soviet Union:120 min | Argentina:111 min
Country:
Language:
Color:
Aspect Ratio:
1.33 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Certification:
Company:
Fun Stuff
Trivia:
This movie became such a hit in the Soviet Union that many new parents named their little girls "Aelita". more
Goofs:
Revealing mistakes: When the spaceship takes off, the ascent is vertical, but the footage shown afterwards, which represents the velocity of the ship, is that of a horizontal motion. more
Movie Connections:
Featured in "Fejezetek a film történetéböl: Az orosz és a szovjet némafilm (#1.4)" (1989) more
FAQ
This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.more (20 total)
Message Boards
Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for Aelita (1924)| Recent Posts (updated daily) | User |
|---|---|
| Similar films? | sipgoblin |
| Aelita as Metropolis missing link | bookbeat-1 |
| I'm probably going to have a daughter and... | amudad |
| aelita review | horroryves |
Recommendations
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| Star Wars | Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace | Flying Disc Man from Mars | The Secret of Treasure Island | Sunshine |
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Related Links
| Full cast and crew | Company credits | External reviews |
| IMDb Action section | IMDb Soviet Union section | Add this title to MyMovies |
_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 that is a correct rendering, that's the Yiddish word for "righteous" and a Jewish name, so Comrade Erlich may be oddly Jewish--if aristocratic _and_ Bolshevik--and the film engaging in some old-fashioned Russian antisemitism [where confused categories aren't surprising]. 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. G. Wells's _Time Machine_ (1895) and _First Men in the Moon_ (1901) and E.M. Forster's "The Machine Stops" (1909)--and visual and thematic possibilities that were going to go on to works from Fritz Lang's _Metropolis_ (1926) to George Lucas's _THX-1138_ (1971) and beyond. And there's a revolution on Mars, which is something neither Lang nor Lucas could/would pull off.
Ideologically, _Aelita_ is about as sophisticated as _Birth of a Nation_ or _Metropolis_ or _Gone with the Wind_, and less offensive (even to a viewer named "Erlich"). It should be seen for the same reason as we see _Wizard of Oz_ and _Dune_: to see the visuals. Just Fast-Forward through the dumb parts, in all of them.