Les Astronautes

(Walerian Borowczyk & Chris Marker/1959/France)

A short surrealist animation about invention and space travel that hints at wider political and philosophical concerns. The credits are sound tracked in a musical jewellery box style that dissolves into futuristic synth washes and whooshes presaging the science fiction to come. We are introduced to a house with knocking and clanging industrial sounds before a man and his owl are seen. He is working on a myriad of calculations and labours which produce a spaceship. The designs of most of its parts are sourced from the natural world. After checking the position of the moon he and the owl set off on a maiden voyage. This involves peeping on a beautiful neighbour through her window, a flyby of some officious person in an open top car, blowing his top hat off and then coming out of a printer’s front door before a daring manoeuvre through the Arch of Titus (identified by the inscription on it). Next the craft is seen following a rocket up into space, cutting the moon in half and then landing on it. From here there is a series of interactions with a giant man in space and a small red arrow shaped ship with the letters SPA on the side. The red SPA ship and the earlier rocket are in battle, shooting at each other. After a few altercations the man’s spaceship is destroyed and he falls to earth where his spirit rises up to an empty cloud. He is surrounded by many other clouds with identical incarnations of his spirit suggesting the escapade in space is some form of Sisyphean loop of existence.

There are many little hints at wider meanings and inspirations. The engine of the spaceship is called Axolotl which I would agree with David Surman could reference Julio Cortázar’s 1952 short story about the psychic transmutation of a man into the body of a salamander. This infers a deeper link between man and machine. An axolotl can also regenerate limbs which might link to the final imagery of numerous incarnations of the space pilot in the final scene. Outside of that the imagery of the owl and the moon are obvious references to classical Greek and Roman culture, the owl being Athena, goddess of wisdom and war and the moon suggests Diane, Roman goddess of hunting who can also reflect the heavens. So we have a clever inventor (wisdom) seeking new experience (hunting) in space using the moon as his guide (the heavens) and getting involved in a battle (war). The battle between the American looking rocket and the soviet looking SPA red arrow must be a nod to the cold war space race that kick started the year before in 1958. The Arch of Titus is a Roman monument built to celebrate Titus’ military victories, especially the Siege of Jerusalem. It became the template for many other arches including the L’Arc de Triomphe. Borowyczyk was a Polish Jew living in Paris at the time of making of Les Astronautes.

 

As it’s a short, surreal and slightly absurdist film delivered with a sense of whimsical humour it would be over reaching to try and pin point direct meanings or explicit statements in the piece. It is fun though to take the various visual references and attempt to decipher the thinking, conscious or otherwise, of the film makers when creating it.

 
(3.5/5)