1 August 2020 | New Scientist | 25Film
Proxima
Alice Winocour
In UK cinemas from 31 July
THE year before Apollo 11’s
successful mission to the moon,
Robert Altman directed James Caan
and Robert Duvall in Countdown. The
1968 film stuck to the technology
of its day, pumping up the drama
with a somewhat outlandish
mission plan: astronaut Lee Stegler
and his shelter pod are sent to the
moon’s surface on separate flights
and Stegler must find the shelter
once he lands if he is to survive.
The film played host to characters
you might conceivably bump into
at the supermarket: the astronauts,
engineers and bureaucrats have
families and everyday troubles not
so very different from your own.
Proxima is Countdown for
the 21st century. Sarah Loreau,
an astronaut played brilliantly by
Eva Green, is given a last-minute
opportunity to join a Mars precursor
mission to the International Space
Station. Loreau’s training and
preparation are impressively
captured on location at European
Space Agency facilities in Cologne,
Germany – with a cameo from
French astronaut Thomas Pesquet –
and in Star City, the complex outside
Moscow that is home to the Yuri
Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.
She is ultimately headed to launch
from Baikonur in Kazakhstan.
Comparing Proxima with
Countdown shows how much
both cinema and the space
community have changed in
the past half-century. There are
archaeological traces of action-hero
melodramatics in Proxima, but they
are the least satisfying parts of
the movie. Eva Green is a credible
astronaut and a good mother,
pushed to extremes on both fronts
and painfully aware that she chose
this course for herself. She can’t be
all things to all people all of the time
and, as she learns, there is no such
thing as perfect.
Because Proxima is arriving
late – its launch was delayed by
the covid-19 lockdown – advances
in space technology have already
somewhat gazzumped Georges
Lechaptois’s metliculous location
cinematography. I came to the film
still reeling from watching the
Crew Dragon capsule Endeavour
lift off from Kennedy Space Center
on 20 May.
That crewed launch was the
first of its kind from US soil since
NASA’s space shuttle was retired in
2011 and looked, from the comfort
of my sofa, about as eventful as a
ride in an airport shuttle bus. So it
was hard to take seriously those
moments in Proxima when taking
off from our planet’s surface is
made the occasion for an existential
crisis. “You’re leaving Earth!”
exclaims family psychologist
Wendy (Sandra Hüller) at one point,
thoroughly earning the look of
contempt that Loreau shoots at her.Proxima’s end credits include
endearing shots of real-life female
astronauts with their very young
children – which does raise a bit of a
problem. The plot largely focuses on
the impact of bringing your child to
work when you spend half your day
in a spacesuit at the bottom of a
swimming pool. “Cut the cord!”
cries the absurdly chauvinistic
NASA astronaut Mike Shannon
(Matt Dillon) when Loreau has to go
chasing after her young daughter.
Yet here is photographic evidence
that suggests Loreau’s real-life
counterparts – Yelena Kondakova,
Ellen Ochoa, Cady Coleman and
Naoko Yamazaki – managed
perfectly well on multiple missions
without all of Proxima’s turmoil.
Wouldn’t we have been better off
seeing the realities they faced rather
than watching Loreau, in the film’s
final moments, break Baikonur’s
safety protocols in order to steal
a feel-good, audience-pandering
mother-daughter moment?
For half a century, movies
have struggled to keep up with
the rapidly changing realities
of the space sector. Proxima,
though interesting and boasting
a tremendous central performance
from Green, proves to be no more
relevant than its forebears. ❚Astronaut Sarah Loreau
(Eva Green) prepares to
leave Earth in Proxima DH
AR
AMSA
LA
&^
DARIUS^ FILMSRealities of space travel
Proxima shows the difficulties of balancing family life
with a career as an astronaut, finds Simon Ings
Don’t miss
Visit
Monsters of the Deep
finally emerges from the
covid-19 deep freeze at
the reopened National
Maritime Museum
Cornwall in Falmouth, UK.
The exhibition explores
the fact, fiction and
future of the planet’s
strangest sea creatures.Read
Planting the World:
Joseph Banks and his
collectors traces how
the influential naturalist
and patron’s 18th
century plant-hunting
expeditions transformed
Europe, from its industry
and medical practices
to its diet and even
its fashion.Watch
The Rain returns for
a third and final season
on Netflix from 6 August.
There are many
mysteries to wrap up
in this highly praised
post-apocalyptic drama
about a rain-borne
virus that nearly wipes
out humanity.
TOP:^ PAUL^ DSTEWAR
T;^ BOT
TOM:^HE
NRIK^ OHS
TE
N/NET
FL
IX