DREAMING OF SPACE

TIFF Film Review
09.16.2005
Kate Trgovac

I really wanted this film to be better. Or at least more consistent. The film description says:

When the Soviet Union launched its first satellite into space in 1957, the Soviet people were filled with an immense feeling of optimism. Space represented freedom, an enormous realm of potential outside their own experience, one unburdened by paranoia or deception. Dreaming of Space is about the hope for the future that gripped a nation corroded by cynicism.

And I think "Yeah, kinda. But only for about three minutes. What I really think happened is that the writer saw some footage of Yuri Gagarin with his shoelace untied and then worked backward from that.

Which is really unfortunate because when it wasn't about "Horsey" being clueless, it was actually quite interesting. The fascination with the West, with getting into space, the nuances of Soviet life in the late '50s. That was all really nifty. The narrative just didn't really hang together. Acting was mixed. The two women who played Lara and Lara's sister, Irina Pegova and Yelena Lyadova, were great, but the two lead male actors, Yevgeny Mironov and Yevgeny Tzyganov, were stilted and came off as bad soviet stereotypes.