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Interkosmos

Deadpan pseudo-documentary turns tragic

By PETER KEOUGH | June 7, 2006

3.0 Stars

INTERKOSMOS: a microcosm of the failed Marxist dream

Jim Finn’s pseudo-documentary about a fictitious East German space program injects a Godardian pastiche with Aki Kaurismäki’s deadpan absurdity and a little Matthew Barney pretentiousness. In the 1970s, according to Finn, the Soviets coordinated the title space program, enlisting cosmonauts from various Iron Curtain and other countries in a mission to colonize the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. Fabricated “archival” footage of cosmonauts in training alternates with musical numbers that include a Soviet girls’ field-hockey team marching to patriotic pop music (like the footage all original, and very funny). The soundtrack also drones with lectures (in German) about such subjects as the behavior of spinner dolphins, or crackles with radio transmissions between the cosmonauts. Interkosmos seems disjointed at first; then a tragic love story emerges, and it reveals itself as a microcosm of the failed Marxist dream.

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