32 | New Scientist | 7 September 2019
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IN THE opening sequence of the
Swedish sci-fi film Aniara, a space
elevator rises into low Earth orbit
to meet an interplanetary cruiser,
bound for new settlements
on Mars. Earth, pillaged to
destruction by humanity,
is by now literally burning.
But the elevator turns out to
be, well, a night bus. A tight focus
on lead actor Emelie Jonsson,
who plays Mimaroben, staring
out of a misted-up window into
the featureless dark, accentuates,
rather than conceals, the lack of set.
The interplanetary cruiser Aniara is
a pretty decent piece of model work
on the outside. Inside, it is a ferry.
Have writer-directors Pella
Kagerman and Hugo Lilja turned
out a film so low budget that they
couldn’t afford sets? Have they
been inept enough to reveal that
fact in the first reel?
No, and no. On the contrary,
Aniara is one of 2019’s smartest
movies. The ship’s journey to Mars
is primarily a retail opportunity.
Buy some duty-free knits while
your kids knock each other off
plastic dinosaurs in the soft-play
area. Have your picture taken withsomeone on the minimum wage
dressed as a stupid bird. Don’t
worry: in a real crisis, there’s
always pitch and putt.
When the worst happens –
colliding with space debris,
Aniara is nudged off course
into interstellar space – the lights
flicker, someone trips on the
stairs, a few passengers complainabout the lack of information, and
the hospitality crew work the mall
bearing complimentary snacks.
“Transtellar Cruise Lines would
like to apologize to passengers for
the continuing delay to this flight.
We are currently awaiting the
loading of our complement of
small lemon-soaked paper napkins
for your comfort, refreshment and
hygiene during the journey.”
Not Aniara, this, but a quotation
from Douglas Adams’s radio tie-in
novel The Restaurant at the End ofNowhere to run Aniara, the story of an interplanetary cruiser thrown off course,
is one of the smartest movies of the year because it understands that the best way
to portray the future is as though it were the present, says Simon Ings“ The moment we attain
the future, it becomes
now – not a place you
go to for a frisson of
wonder or horror”Film
Aniara
Directed by Pella Kagerman
and Hugo Lilja
On UK releaseSimon also
recommends...Films
Alphaville
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
A secret agent is out to
liberate the distant space
city of Alphaville (Paris,
in fact, with no special
sets or props).Dark Star
Directed by John Carpenter
A self-medicating, bored-to-
death stellar demolition
crew embrace the cosmic
tedium. Yes, it’s a comedy.the Universe, to which Aniara
serves as a bleak twin. Don’t for
a moment think that this is a film
without humour. In one scene,
the captain (played with pitch-
perfect ghastliness by Arvin
Kananian) reassures passengers
that rescue is imminent while
playing billiards. Balls and pockets,
planets and gravity wells: it is
every useless planetary mechanics
lecture you may have suffered
through. Watching it, you know
everyone is doomed.
Not only will there be no rescue,
it begins to dawn on our hero
Mimaroben (a sort of ship’s
counsellor armed with a telepathic
entertainment system that, yes,
kills itself) that there is no such
thing as rescue. “You think Mars is
paradise?” she scolds a passenger.
“It’s cold.” Death is a waiting game,
wherever you run.
Aniara is based on a sci-fi poem
by Nobel prizewinner Harry
Martinson. In a review of it, sci-fi
writer Theodore Sturgeon said it
“transcends panic and terror and
even despair [and] leaves you in
the quiet immensities”.
I don’t care how bleak it is. I’m
sick of those oh-so-futuristic sci-fi
films, with their scenarios that,
however “dystopic”, are really only
there to ravish the eye and numb
the mind. Aniara gets the future
right – it portrays it as though it
were the present. When we finally
build a space elevator, it will be
like a bus. When we do fly to Mars,
it will be indistinguishable from
taking a ferry. The moment we
attain the future, it becomes
now, and now is not a place you
go to for a frisson of wonder or
horror. It is where you are stuck,
trying to scrape together a
meaning for it all. ❚METAFILM/MAGNOLIA PICTURES/KOBAL/SHUTTERSTOCKRescue is a forlorn notion
for passengers on the
space cruiser AniaraThe film column
Simon Ings is a novelist and
science writer and a culture
editor at New Scientist.
Follow him on Instagram
@simon_ings