Best movie of this year hands down!

Thanks for the memories!

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It's always interesting to see a work of fiction have sequences imagined by characters within the work itself, because it is an occasion to watch a story move along a sliding scale of "not real" to "also not real". "Aelita: queen of mars" is a movie outwardly comprised of two sections- the "real" parts on earth and the "fantasy" parts on mars. But of course the scenes on earth are just as much fantasy as the rest because of their very appearance in a fictional film. This imaginary line between the fake and the even more fake is especially carefully tread after our protagonist, Los, returns from his 6 months away from home. Los and his narcissistic fantasy (of the queen of mars becoming utterly infatuated with him) come crashing together after he shoots his wife. Or at least that is one perspective of the events, but stating that scenes up to that point were grounded in reality creates some incongruities.I do not believe that Los shot his wife, instead I think that that scene was also in his mind. His ability to accept and forget his wife's death goes against the jealous and insecure character we've seen from him. His attitude towards his wife's murder doesn't make sense unless it's in the context of the rest of his fantasy.There is an interesting dynamic between fantasy and reality throughout the film that is further emphasized by the over-acting in many of the scenes trying to be presented as real. The acting and the characters constantly give a jarring reminder to the audience that even in the 'real' scenes we are still watching a film, and unfortunately this hurts the experience. Other than the jumps between fantasy and reality, this movie is not very interesting and hard to watch.

This film is strange, even for a silent movie. Essentially, it follows the adventures about a engineer in post-revolutionary Russia who daydreams about going to Mars. In this movie, it seems like the producers KNOW the Communists have truly screwed up the country, but also seems to want to make it look like they've accomplished something good.Then we get to the "Martian" scenes, where everyone on Mars wears goofy hats. They have a revolution after being inspired by the Earth Men, but are quickly betrayed by the Queen who sides with them. Except it's all a dream, or is it. (And given that the Russian Revolution eventually lead to the Stalin dictatorship, it makes you wonder if it was all allegory.) Now, I've seen GOOD Russian cinema. For instance, Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin is a good movie. This is just, well, silly.

Aelita is a film riddled with stories of uprisings, rebellions, and communism. What is interesting about this film is that it is seen from two worlds. Hailed as the first science fiction film from Russia, it depicts the social economy in Russia during 1924, and compares it to the Martian capitalist society that is watching from the Red Planet in the sky. A radio signal from an unknown source has been sent all over the world, and while some disregard this as just a innocent jumble of messages, Los, a individualist, yet jealous engineer thinks that it is a message from Mars. He begins work on a space craft that will ultimately take him to the uncharted planet, but also ruin his personal life. On Mars, The Queen, Aelita, has discovered that some of her scientists have created a telescope that can watch the planet Earth up close. Trying not to get caught, odd because she is Queen, she sneaks a peak through the telescope and sees our favorite murderer and engineer, Los. She immediately falls in love with him and even appears in one of his dreams. When he arrives to meet her on Mars, he discovers a world not unlike his own that he was trying to escape. Riddled with similarities, Los must fight for not only for Mother Russia, but for the surrounding red planet.For my first viewing of a silent film, I was unimpressed. I thought that it was going to show a short, simple story that would show me the techniques that Hollywood uses today. While I did see some of sci-fi's beginnings with this film, I felt that it stressed too much on the symbolic nature of these characters instead of developing a story. I will say this, the director is daring to make this film. It involves several character development, a hard task to tackle in the silent film era because it was hard to keep track of who was who. One aspect that I thought was interesting that lost itself in the translation to DVD was the music. This was a harsh film to watch. A little over two hours, it was too much silent film for me. I found myself getting angry at the music, and a headache because I couldn't follow which character was which. I also don't know much about the history of Russia during this time, so I had trouble following why these characters were acting in this style. What I did find interesting was the turn of events in this film. I really never saw them coming. I never thought that Aelita would be such a power hog. The director was again trying to make a statement about life in Russia, but it still made me stop and make sure I was capturing the moment correctly. Had some good psychological moments tied with some great characters that no doubt came from Russian literature. Overall, strong moments with a very weak plot made it a tough watch. I will have to give that it was a powerful film for a silent movie, but just not what I was hoping for or expecting. Check this movie out if you are a big sci-fi history buff. I think this is right in your corner, but for everyone else...I will continue to search for the best.Grade: ** out of *****

Bizarre Russian sci-fi, socialist silent about a scientist who builds a rocketship, flies to Mars, and leads the Martian proletariat in a communist revolution. Or at least that's what I've always heard that that was what Aelita was about. In reality, this part of the plot only takes up about fifteen minutes of this 111 minute film. Most of it takes place on Earth, where a scientist, Los, suffers the infidelities and hedonism of his wife. He watches her with scorn as their philandering neighbor feeds her pieces of chocolate. This movie may hold the record for having the most unnecessary subplots. There's a man who is training to be a spy/private detective/undercover policeman (the professions seem kind of mixed up) and then there's a soldier who has had much experience `winning over' neighboring lands to the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, on Mars, curious Queen Aelita is wasting the planet's energy supply by using a newly invented telescope to watch Earthlings. She falls in love with the scientist. The movie is mainly valuable for the early science fiction settings. The filmmakers do a very good job with the art design on Mars. Of course everything looks very silly and impractical, but it's always amusing. Some of the sets and costumes are more imaginative than anything in Metropolis. Of course, Prozanov isn't anywhere near the talent Lang was, and most of the time the images are haphazardly composed. The Earth sequences, which take up the vast majority of the film, are not too bad, to tell you the truth. In fact, the story is pretty good. It certainly needed to be cleaned up a lot, especially so we might understand why the side characters exist in the first place (it makes more sense when they get to Mars, ¾ of the way through the picture). The acting is quite excellent. I thought the Martians were particularly well cast. I was actually quite enjoying Aelita: Queen of Mars, but the cop-out ending is rather bothersome. It's worth seeing, but it might be helpful to know beforehand that it's going to fall apart completely by the end. 7/10.