#aelita queen of mars

[fitsofgloom]

Mr. Galaxy

[geekynerfherder]

'Aelita: Queen of Mars' by Sam Chivers.

Officially licensed 18" x 24" screen print on 300gsm Gmund Bauhaus paper, in a numbered limited edition of 50 for £50, with gallery stamp on the reverse.

On sale Tuesday September 24 at 5pm UK through Black Dragon Press.

[cressida-jayoungr]

One Dress a Day Challenge

August: Fantasy & Sci-Fi

Aelita, Queen of Mars / Aleksandra Peregonets as Ikhoshka

I think of this as "the bumblebee costume" because of the striped body and the headdress that reminds me of antennae. Ikhoshka is Queen Aelita's favorite servant, and she wears this elaborate framework "skirt" over a pair of baggy pantaloons. She also has ballet slippers, a chunky necklace, and something like a battery pack at her waist.

The costumes for the Martian sequences, designed by Aleksandra Ekster, are outlandish and highly imaginative. This movie was said to be a strong influence on Metropolis. You can find several versions of it free to watch on YouTube.

[fullcolorfright]

Doodles while watching Aelita: Queen of Mars

[mousenoseopera]

I can hear the Alloy Orchestra playing.

“Aelita, Queen of Mars” (1924)

[mudwerks]

(via RADIUM AGE ART (1924) – HILOBROW)

Aelita: Queen of Mars is a 1924 Soviet silent sf film based on Alexei Tolstoy’s 1923 novel.

[chronivore]

A scene from the 1924 Russian science fiction silent film AELITA: QUEEN OF MARS.

[everydayesterday]

[eclecticpjf]

Now watching:

This is from 1924 and is the first big budget movie from the Soviet Union. I’m only a few minutes in, but the Martian sets and costumes are FANTASTIC.

[the1920sinpictures]

1925 Poster for "Aelita, Queen of Mars", Russia's first science fiction film.

[scifiseries]

Aelita, Queen of Mars (1924)

[cressida-jayoungr]

One Dress a Day Challenge

February: Coeli's Monochrome Picks

Aelita, Queen of Mars / Yuliya Solntseva as Aelita

Coeli's comment: "Aelita: Queen of Mars has some magnificently weird Constructivist costumes in the Martian sequence (contrasting with the dull Soviet realism of the rest of the movie!)."

The Martian costumes in this film, by Aleksandra Ekster, are indeed quite something! Here, Aelita wears a hat that's something like an umbrella spine or perhaps a radio antenna. And is the design of that bodice meant to hint that she has three breasts, or is it just a stylistic thing?

There's a cool writeup and summary of the movie here.

I featured a costume Ikhoshka, Aelita's servant (who dresses like a bumblebee in a birdcage), in a previous post.

[mosertone]

A scene from the 1924 Russian science fiction silent film AELITA: QUEEN OF MARS. (via Silent and Pre-Code Horror)

[mariacallous]

The gown here was designed for the movie Aelita: Queen of Mars, which was also playing on the wall behind it

[pandoramsbox]

Sci-Fi Saturday: Things to Come

Week 18

Film(s): Things to Come (Dir. William Cameron Menzies, 1936, UK)

Viewing Format: Blu-Ray: Criterion Edition

Date Watched: 2021

Rationale for Inclusion:

Once upon a time in 2006, my partner and I took a formal science fiction film genre class during our year abroad at the University of East Anglia. Like Aelita: Queen of Mars (Аэли́та, Dir. Yakov Protazanov, 1924, USSR), Things to Come (Dir. William Cameron Menzies, 1936, UK) was on the syllabus. Also like Aelita, my partner and I remembered that it was interesting, and had great set pieces, but we did not like it enough to watch it again until this survey gave us the excuse.

Plus with a screenplay by H.G. Wells, adapted from his own 1933 book The Shape of Things to Come, the film would have been worth watching for that point alone.

Reactions:

Maybe I had forgotten, or maybe it did not hit the same way the last time I watched it in 2006, but I was taken aback by how ideologically fascist Things to Come becomes after its first act. Despite being a Fabian Society socialist, who was watching fascism and authoritarianism on the rise in Europe, Wells took the stance in The Shape of Things to Come and this film adaptation that the only way to unify the world, and bring about lasting peace and technological advancement, was under a benevolent dictatorship. Maybe being a man of the Victorian era, he simply thought imperialism and monarchy was fine when done the English way, despite it being frowned upon when anyone else did it. 

Watching Things to Come in 2021, amid nationalism having a surge in popularity and being well aware of the history of colonialism and how much support Nazi ideology had in what would become the Allied countries in World War II, I was left with the impression that the film was pro-fascist.

The aesthetic of Wings Over the World being what they are, all militaristic and black, it is hard not to draw comparisons to the aesthetics of German Nazis or Italian Fascists. Given how explicitly anti-war Things to Come is leading up to John Cabal (Raymond Massey) flying up to Everytown, the audience is positioned to be as leery of this purposefully intimidating presence as the Boss (Ralph Richardson) is upon meeting the outsider. (Besides, dude looks like Boris Karloff.) 

The Boss's leery defensiveness clashes with Cabal's self-assured pompousness, and the latter is taken prisoner. When the rest of his force comes to rescue Cabal, they rain down "The Gas of Peace" to incapacitate the populus, rescue their man, and take over Everytown. Given the mission of Wings Over the World, the taking of Everytown was inevitable, it was just a matter of how willingly the Boss and his community went.

A militaristic anti-war organization that uses something called "The Gas of Peace" is downright Orwellian (despite this film coming out 12 years before the publication of Animal Farm and 16 before Nineteen Eighty-Four) or it would be if it was meant satirically instead of sincerely. The heroic aviators and use of gas as vital technology were standards of the science fiction of this era, as we saw in F.P.1 (F.P.1 antwortet nicht, Dir. Karl Hartl, 1932, Germany), but the prior act of Things to Come being so explicitly anti-war makes it hard not to view a group that uses militarism to achieve their goals as anything but malevolent in the context of the filmic universe, even as the film narrative insists that Wings Over the World and their methods are positive and beneficial to humanity.

The third act of Things to Come, set a generation or two in the future from the second act, in 2036, shows glorious, gleaming subterranean cities that have been built under the leadership of Wings Over the World. Although this type of utopia's homogeneity is its own kind of concerning, the way the government is dismissive of the protestation of citizens that think technology is advancing too fast and the closing speech by Oswald Cabal (Massey again), the leader of the government and grandson of John Cabal, that humanity "must go on, conquest beyond conquest" only reinforces the second act's message that fascism is the necessary key to a successful society.

Did Wells and the filmmakers ever realize that what they were advocating in this film was the same ideology of the Axis powers that their country went to war against? Or was I right the first time when I wondered that authoritarian rule was fine for these Englishmen as long as it was the English doing the ruling?

Needless to say, I do not like Things to Come. I recognize the quality of the filmmaking, special effects and this film's impact on later genre films, but its politics are off putting. I find it equally off putting that most of the negative criticism towards this film is focused on its narrative structure and dull characters. Granted, those things were probably why I had not watched the film for 15 years. Plus, the third act absolutely drags in its pacing.

If I were to teach a science fiction cinema class, I likely would include Things to Come on the curriculum. It's a well made and interesting work of science fiction and has a lot of components to pick at and discuss; as evident from everything I wrote above. I just won't be throwing it on when I want some vintage sci-fi on a rainy afternoon, unlike most of the other films discussed in this survey thus far.

[crash-stop]

From working with my new favourite source material the 1921 silent film Aelita - Queen of mars.