The shift in science fiction literature around the halfway mark of the 20th century, when a new wave of writers turned away from the “narrow imaginative limits” of the genre in favor of an exploration of the mysteries of the “inner life” — in the words of J.G. Ballard — was a line drawn in the martian soil. Space exploration and the uncertainty of extraterrestrial life were quickly becoming cliché, relics of science fiction’s murky juvenile roots in pulp magazines and dime-store paperbacks. It was time to turn attention from the sky to the ground, where the world was turning out to be just as weird and dangerous as outer space.
Science fiction films would soon follow suit. “Strange Lands: International Sci-Fi,” a new series at the Film Society of Lincoln Center opening August 22, maps out a shadowy enclave of the genre’s cinematic history, where the only rule, it seems, was that none were allowed. The peripatetic series hopscotches around Europe with a soft focus on the Eastern Bloc, highlighting a dizzying array of modes that expand the definitions of science fiction.
In part, the shift was a bid for greater seriousness. The outer limits charted by science fiction were always in dialogue with a coded present, but the conversation needed to be constructed in new ways. Kingsley Amis, in a widely cited survey of the genre, likened it to jazz and offered a view typical of the period: both popular forms, he wrote, “have thrown up a large number of interesting and competent figures without producing anybody of first rate importance.” Time would prove Amis wrong, of course. Philip K. Dick—whose most prophetic works would be published in the next decade—along with the Ballard, Octavia Butler, Samuel Delany, and many others became celebrated stylists who reshaped the forms science-fiction writing could take and the subjects it could address.
Stanislaw Lem and the Strugatsky brothers, writing in Poland and the Soviet Union respectively, were towering figures in Eastern Bloc sci-fi. Much of their work was not recognized in the United States until much later, but they were adapted by the great Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky in two films, now considered classics, released seven years apart — “Solaris,” based on Lem’s novel of the same name, and “Stalker,” based on the Strugatskys’ novel “Roadside Picnic.” The influence of Tarkovsky’s films can be seen across much of the work featured in “Strange Lands,” and his two major science-fiction films — one set in space, the other in a future world that looks like a war torn present — form nice bookends for the work included in the series.
All the films are worth seeing (and many of them are so rare this may be your only chance), but here are a few key titles that really should be seen on the big screen in order to aprreciate their prophetic and zany glory.
GROOVIEST PARTY IN THE GDR
“In The Dust of Stars,” 1976 (August 23)
A candy-colored fantasia produced by East Germany’s DEFA Studios, it concerns a group of space travelers who respond to a distress call from a nearby planet, only to arrive and find that everyone seems suspiciously friendly. The studio only produced four science-fiction films, and this was the final and best one, engaging in its campiness and grandiose vision. “Eolomea” (August 23), another DEFA-produced curiosity, screens in the series as well.
LAND OF THE LOST
“Morel’s Invention,” 1974 (August 27)
“The End of August at the Hotel Ozone,” 1967 (August 28)
The two best films in the series present a stark contrast to the decadent DEFA productions. “Morel’s Invention,” an adaptation of Adolfo Bioy Casares’s slim novel of the same name, concerns an escaped criminal — we never learn his crime — who discovers the wealthy inhabitants of a deserted island are strangely disregarding his presence. Produced in Italy and featuring Anna Karina in one of the main roles, this mind-bender features a stunning, almost wordless introduction and demands multiple viewings to navigate its hypnotic maze. “The End of August at the Hotel Ozone” is a forgotten masterpiece of the Czech New Wave, featuring an almost all female cast rummaging through the abandoned countryside after a nuclear attack. Shot in bracing black-and-white and featuring a deft array of compositions, it’s one of the more startling and thrilling films in the series.
FUTURE SHOCK
“Golem,” 1980 (August 25)
“The 10th Victim,” 1965 (August 27)
Two visions of the future, both grim (are visions of the future ever not grim?). “Golem,” directed by Piotr Szulkin and produced in Poland, is about a rouge clone who has escaped the scientists who created him. The film has the disorienting influence of Stanislaw Lem while copping some of the visual-paranoia from Orson Welles’s adaptation of Kafka’s “The Trial,” with nods to Tarkovsky in between. “The 10th Victim” is a more opulent affair, starring Ursula Andress and Marcello Mastroianni (sporting a close-cropped, Lou Reed-like blonde hairdo) as participants in a television program that features contestants hunting each other like wild animals. Directed by Elio Petri (who would later on make some of the best poliziotteschi films of the 1970s), the film is prescient in its dizzying-view of the furthest reaches of a media-obsessed culture
