Eolomea is a trippy, serious-minded, interesting, Utopian, richly-colored 1970s spaced-out timepiece of a film. But Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" it's not. Indeed, Tarkovsky's "Solaris" it's not. Oh, this East German film strains mightily to compete with either of these epics, but the slightly threadbare production values, the "challenged" model work (apparently shot on 70 mm film), the sometimes circular plot, and strange (incomplete?) visual and sound edits ultimately makes for an inferior product. If you are a lover of 70's era sci-fi, this one has got to be on your list--in one sense it is a real find. Me? I'll gladly put it on my bookshelf right next to "Zardoz," "Soylent Green," "Zero Population Growth," and "Idaho Transfer." (Unlike most of those films, though, "Eolomea" is Utopian in nature instead of dystopian.) The fact that this DEFA film is now available on DVD is a triumph, really. You should snap it up. The widescreen transfer looks great, the colors are nice, the images are carefully crafted.
But the interior of the ships and space stations--though they tend toward realism rather than the fantastic--look tiny and unimpressive (the budget is showing), the robot hardware is quaint (and silly, on purpose), the spacesuits look like pajamas...you get the picture (because you've seen this sort of thing before). At times, the visuals of this film seem stuck 20 years in the past from when it was made; at other times though, it tries very hard to excel (especially in the 70's loungey space rock score and the trippy use of those oil-n-water color gel slides that spread out across the screen in a variety of colors and shapes to represent the liquid and alien "unknown" of space).
My expectations for this film were probably way too high--I thought I was going to be discovering another "Solaris" honestly. But the plot is tension-less and the characters are, ultimately, wooden. (And that's a problem when a film relies mainly on the interaction of characters to push the action along.) If the writers and directors were making a thrilling space adventure, they failed miserably. The story surrounds a group of some 160 cosmonaut-scientists who go off in search of the mythological planet of Eolomea. Oh, sorry, I just gave the ending away. But I haven't really given away very much. Everything that comes before the unimpressive take-off at the end is two hours of bickering about whether or not they should go. Don't get me wrong; there's a whole helluva lot of talking in "Solaris" too. I love a talky, inventive, idea-oriented sci-fi film as much as the next guy. But this didn't even really trade in interesting ideas. The plot: "Should we go look for this planet or not? Yes? No? Why? Why not? OK, let's go. The End." But instead of getting depressed thinking I've seen every cool 70s sci-fi flick that exists, along comes "Eolomea" just in time--with its feet planted firmly in the future and its style planted firmly in 1972. For that fact alone, I am in debt.
But the interior of the ships and space stations--though they tend toward realism rather than the fantastic--look tiny and unimpressive (the budget is showing), the robot hardware is quaint (and silly, on purpose), the spacesuits look like pajamas...you get the picture (because you've seen this sort of thing before). At times, the visuals of this film seem stuck 20 years in the past from when it was made; at other times though, it tries very hard to excel (especially in the 70's loungey space rock score and the trippy use of those oil-n-water color gel slides that spread out across the screen in a variety of colors and shapes to represent the liquid and alien "unknown" of space).
My expectations for this film were probably way too high--I thought I was going to be discovering another "Solaris" honestly. But the plot is tension-less and the characters are, ultimately, wooden. (And that's a problem when a film relies mainly on the interaction of characters to push the action along.) If the writers and directors were making a thrilling space adventure, they failed miserably. The story surrounds a group of some 160 cosmonaut-scientists who go off in search of the mythological planet of Eolomea. Oh, sorry, I just gave the ending away. But I haven't really given away very much. Everything that comes before the unimpressive take-off at the end is two hours of bickering about whether or not they should go. Don't get me wrong; there's a whole helluva lot of talking in "Solaris" too. I love a talky, inventive, idea-oriented sci-fi film as much as the next guy. But this didn't even really trade in interesting ideas. The plot: "Should we go look for this planet or not? Yes? No? Why? Why not? OK, let's go. The End." But instead of getting depressed thinking I've seen every cool 70s sci-fi flick that exists, along comes "Eolomea" just in time--with its feet planted firmly in the future and its style planted firmly in 1972. For that fact alone, I am in debt.