Christian Frei’s latest documentary explores the redefined frontiers of space from two very perspectives. In the first, we’re shown how wealth can purchase an exalted individual passage into space for the ultimate in fantasy fulfilment. In the second, the impoverished masses scour the broken landscape for space junk, grasping for buckled pieces that rockets have shrugged off through their various phases of flight away from the Earth.
Space Tourists (2009) documents the realisation of a dream for wealthy businesswoman and engineer Anousheh Ansari. Born in Iran with an innate curiosity about what mysteries exist amidst the star-lit firmament, Ansari moved to America at 16. As she reached adulthood the yearning to leave the Earth’s surface in one way or another only strengthened. With 20 million dollars spent on her elaborate dream, Ansari enters the orbiting International Space Station for eight days.
Though she makes mention of the extravagance of her ambition and the negative perception it has generated, Frei’s film mostly insulates her from criticism. Instead we’re shown a portrait of a woman whose fierce determination to succeed and realise her dream is met with no impassable barrier. Ansari has even allowed her fascination with space to be shared collectively through initiatives that encourage civilians to follow their own dream of becoming passengers in space.
Frei’s film sets up a fascinating contrast to Ansari’s bid by following the journey of a Norwegian photographer Jonas Bendiksen who, curious about Russian relatives, goes on an odyssey across remote Kazakhstan, a location specifically and strategically chosen by the Soviets to run their space program, thus dissuading the prying eyes of the world from interference. In effect Bendiksen becomes the film’s narrator, providing a scaled-down history lesson and an overview of the ghostly remnants of the old, once-thriving system which still sees the landscape dotted with rusted hulks like museum pieces exposed to the elements.
Most startling of all are scenes which follow groups of poor Kazakh people whose chief preoccupation is collecting “rocket junk”. In America, because of the location of their rocket launches in Florida, cast-off pieces fall safely into the Atlantic. Not so in Kazakhstan where the pieces rain down upon relatively populated regions. It’s not uncommon for farmers to see pieces embedded on their properties not far from where they sleep.
Later, Bendiksen informs us of a place dubbed ‘Star City’ where hundreds of civilians are put through extensive training in their bids to be fit for space travel. From all external appearances the place looks abandoned and disused but behind closed doors, a series of exhaustive, often tedious tests are carried out on men and women whose chances of ever reaching for the stars are minimal to say the least. According to Bendiksen the Russian Space program of today has become obsessed with commercialisation, with technology and knowledge sold off to anyone who can pay the asking price.
This fascination portrait of two very different worlds offers telling insights into the contrary nature of space-related dreams. There’s something sobering about Frei’s clinical observation of the impoverished Kazakh men engaged, too, in their own intense acts of observation. Waiting on the periphery of safety they watch for the distant explosion signifying another launch rocket before charging at the horizon in search of the “gifts from heaven” that they can retrieve and later use to make shovels, sleds or for repairs on their homes.
Though it lacks urgency, Space Tourists is an interesting glimpse at the opposite ends of the scale, from the influence wielded by a powerful individual to the collective surrender of those conditioned to wait in their place.
I say:
A fascinating look at the astonishing possibilities of space as seen from two very different vantage points.
See it for:
Ansari’s precious few days on the International Space Station and the first moment of anticipation as the desert scavengers wait for fire in the sky.
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