Blast! Off

This Friday, Facets Cinematheque premieres Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Paul Devlin’s new film, Blast! The feature documents the travails and triumphs of astrophysicists working to launch an experimental satellite and, in the process, gain a greater understanding of our place in the universe.

Of course, Devlin’s film is by no means the first to look to the stars and contemplate big questions--namely: who are we and how do we fit into the grand scheme of things. What follows, then, is recommended viewing by way of complementary preparation for coming out to see Blast!

Science fiction has long reserved a special place for its more contemplative moods; this is the space film. Little needs to be said of the two giants of the sci-fi cannon--Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Tarkovsky’s Solaris--other than, if you have not seen them, do. However there are also little gem’s kicking around this subset of the genre.

Sunshine, Danny Boyle’s 2007 film has been unfortunately overshadowed (excuse the pun) by the wild success of his most recent, Slumdog Millionaire. Sunshine is worth checking out, however, if only for Boyle’s spectacular rendering of stellar landscapes and solar ambiance. This film about a futuristic mission to restart our dying sun revels in both the star’s astronomical beauty and incendiary horror.

Interkosmos, Jim Finn’s 2006 musical mockumentary purports to tell the story of the Eastern Bloc’s failed attempt to carry the Communist Revolution to the stars. Mixing loving recreations of Soviet-era kitsch with actual archival telescopic footage, Interkosmos gives us a light satire of socialist utopian dreams and a playfully wry and experimental reinvigoration of the conventions of the outer-space movies we know so well.

Powers of Ten is directed by geniuses of American design, Ray and Charles Eames and it begins not far from Facets’ offices, hovering 10 meters above a couple picnicking on Chicago’s lakeshore. The camera then pulls away from the Earth at an exponentially greater rate, picturing the whole of the city, then the globe, Milky Way, and beyond. From this intergalactic vantage-point, the Eameses proceed to give us what must be the greatest zoom shot in the history of the cinema as we rocket back to earth and into the depths of inner space, finally stopping just outside the nucleus of a single carbon atom in the picnicker’s hand. Consisting of this one shot, Powers of Ten is a dizzying and dazzling little movie.

Blast! premieres at Facets Cinematheque, this Friday, September 25th and runs through Thursday, October 1st. For showtimes and tickets, click here.


-Heath Iverson