Power of Pictures Thursday Evening Film Screening

Yakov Protazanov's Aelita: Queen of Mars

Film

Thursday, November 5, 2015
6 – 8 pm
Exhibition Galleries

Aelita: Queen of Mars Directed by Yakov Protazanov 1924, USSR, 111 min.

The early Soviet science fiction film Aelita tells the story of Los, an engineer who becomes obsessed with a cryptic radio message from Mars. As he builds a spaceship that will take him to the red planet, he is observed through a giant telescope by the Martian Queen Aelita, daughter of the totalitarian ruler Tuskub. When Los and his companions arrive on Mars, Aelita and Los fall in love. The Russians incite the downtrodden Martian slaves to rise up in rebellion. Aelita at first offers to lead the revolution but then forms her own totalitarian regime. Los, disillusioned, tries to stop her, only to wake up and discover that it was all a dream. Widely acclaimed—if hardly understood—upon its release, the film was eventually banned by Stalin’s censors. Based on a novel by Alexei Tolstoy, it has remarkable Constructivist sets and elaborate costumes for the scenes on Mars, designed by Alexandra Exter.

Free with Pay-What-You-Wish admission.