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| Courtesy of Gorky Film |
Near the end of his filmmaking career
in 1981, Russian director Richard Viktorov fresh off of his sci-fi family
comedy Teens in the Universe and legendary science-fiction novelist Kir
Bulychev teamed up for a most ambitious Soviet cinematic undertaking with Через тернии к
звёздам. Separated into two
separate halves, Per Aspera Ad Astra or Through the Thorns to the Stars
or to go even further To the Stars by Hard Ways, this expensive and
effects-heavy production opened to enormous commercial success in Russia but
remains all but unseen outside most world cinema and/or sci-fi fantasy
circles.
Outside of Russia, the most people have seen was a truncated US English-dubbed
cut called Humanoid Woman which aired on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Further still some twenty years later the
director’s son Nikolai, a filmmaker himself, tracked down surviving 70mm film
elements and recut the two-parter into one twenty-minutes shorter single film
including newly recorded sound effects, re-rendered computer-generated digital
effects and further edited out Soviet ideological context from the film. Having watched and compared both the original
two-parter and what can be more or less dubbed the Star Wars: Special
Edition recut, let us attempt to break down the essence of what was behind
both respective versions of Richard Viktorov’s Through the Thorns to the
Stars.
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| Courtesy of Gorky Film |
Sometime in the 23rd century, starship Pushkin happens upon a
derelict alien spacecraft filled with lifeless humanoid figures floating in
suspended animation. Only one member survives,
a female creature the head scientist Sergei Lebedev (Uldis Lieldidz) names
Neeya (Yelena Metyolkina) before taking her home to his house on Earth with his
mother and young son to keep watch over their new inhuman guest.
As Neeya starts to regain her faculties and consciousness, she discovers
she has telekinetic and psychic powers and comes from a planet named Dessa
which is now overrun by an evil super-corporation that is eating away at her planet’s
resources. Determined to save her
planet, she and a team descend upon Dessa only to discover mercenary locals
known as the Monopolist Turanchoks with mercurial motives are laying in wait to
seize control of Neeya’s metaphysical abilities.
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| Courtesy of Gorky Film |
Notable for having its own peculiar spin on Forbidden Planet’s ‘Robby
the Robot’, an alien mass that will remind many of the Tetsuo monster at the
end of Akira and a short-cut blond-haired heroine fans of Underwater will
point to as a primary source of inspiration, Through the Thorns to the Stars
taken as a whole is a wonderfully psychedelic and visually arresting
science fiction epic.
Opening on a
dreamy, ethereal cue gorgeously rendered electronically by Alexey Rybnikov with
the exterior shape of a spaceship careening towards a starfield, right away you
are lulled into a uniquely tranquil science fiction universe. Arguably the ethereal soundtrack enhances the
visuals and the overall feel of the world of the movie, as though you’re
swimming in a vast electronic ocean of sight and sound. Just as arresting is the film’s ornate visual
style by Aleksandry Rybin who photographs the picture in panoramic 2.35:1
widescreen though sadly most of the English friendly release versions of the
film crop improperly crop the image down to 1.78:1.
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| Courtesy of Gorky Film |
The film’s ensemble cast is good though nearly all the film’s heavy
lifting is handled by its largely silent but beautiful otherworldly muse played
by Yelena Metyolkina. Channeling Maggie
McOmie ala THX 1138 by way of Persis Khambatta from Star Trek: The
Motion Picture which also prominently featured a near-balding woman in a
sterilized science-fiction world, Metyolkina with her wide eyes and curious
physical movements makes us believe we’re in the presence of an
interdimensional being. Also curious are
the film’s other aliens including one oversized creature in a water tank that
will remind some viewers of Jabba The Hutt and a Napoleonic leader keen on
destroying Neeya’s home planet.
As previously mentioned in 2001 Nikolai Viktorov embarked on a
top-to-bottom restoration of the film as well as commissioning an entirely new
score by Sergei Skripka which frankly sounds like a poor man’s Hans Zimmer and
takes away from the dreamy sleepy feel of the world seen in the original 1981
version. Still for many the 2001 cut is the
only available option to see the film properly rendered in widescreen though
completists intent on finishing the puzzle are inclined to watch the cropped
original two-part cut thereafter.
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| Courtesy of Gorky Film |
Taken as a whole, this is an indelible piece of world science fiction
that still remains mostly overlooked and unknown by western filmgoers. That’s a shame because what is here is a most
unique foray into 1980s science-fiction in what many deem to be Richard
Viktorov’s crowning achievement. Despite
the differences in cuts (which one do you choose?), the complete saga that is Through
the Thorns to the Stars is a brilliant entry into the international sci-fi
canon long past overdue for rediscovery and one of the most visually arresting
Russian science-fiction films of the 1980s.
--Andrew Kotwicki
