 |
| Images courtesy of Deaf Crocodile Films |
Deaf Crocodile Films remains at the forefront of my favorite
boutique releasing labels. From their
top to bottom concentration on all things Eastern European cinema related to
their recent jump from Vinegar Syndrome to Diabolikdvd’s webstore and the
unveiling of deluxe limited hard boxed special editions of rare hard-to-see
movies, they continue to wow and delight world cinema fans off the beaten
path. From Russian to Czechoslovakian to
Croatian, there’s no Eastern European country they haven’t tapped into each of
its respective film archives. One arena
of film they seem to have left untapped until recently was Soviet occupied Eastern
Germany which in 1946 founded the film company Deutsche-Film Aktiengesellschaft
or DEFA for short.
While Germany remained divided between East Germany or the
German Democratic Republic, the film studio made numerous films across the
board of subgenres and during the company’s run until 1992 when Germany
reunified they generated some science-fiction space adventures. Two of them were written and directed by Gottfried
Kolditz which have been gathered here for today’s Deaf Crocodile review of
their two-film set consisting of the 1970 Polish-German 70mm 6-track widescreen
adventure Signals: A Space Adventure and 1976’s German-Romanian funky
cool space opera In the Dust of the Stars making their United States
debut for the very first time.
In the first of a two-film set, Signals: A Space
Adventure in 2.20:1 scope widescreen opens on an ominous title card flying
at the screen as electronic music by Karl-Ernst Sasse fills the soundstage
telegraphing nebulous fear of the unknown dangers of space travel. Soon Otto Hanisch’s Orwocolor DEFA 70 Reflex
65mm camera settles on a juxtaposition of miniature models of spaceships by
Stanislaw Dulz and Kurt Marks before moving into ornate interior set pieces and
corridors reminiscent of Ikarie XB 1.
In this universe the ship the Ikaros and its crew have vanished
without a trace, prompting a search and rescue mission to find and retrieve the
adrift spacecraft by research ship Laika. However as the crew of the Laika draws
nearer their destination, they begin picking up on those mysterious eerie
signals drifting through space in the opening title credits sequence.
Partially a space thriller involving the possibility of alien
intelligence, partially a carefree ensemble wade through space travel
channeling many of the key vistas of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey,
this late-sixties mod sci-fi romp with retro-futurist production design, Star
Trek costume design and a delightful zero gravity white tunnel sequence
that’s closer to Barbarella than anything else is both chilly sleek and
deliriously hip. The crew consisting of Commander
Veikko (Piotr Pawlowski), aged hefty Gaston (Helmut Schreiber), Pawel (Evyeniy
Zharikov of Ivan’s Childhood) whose girlfriend was on the missing ship
and others make up a sizable crew though only the three principal characters
are fully defined. As with 2001: A
Space Odyssey, the sets and 65mm camera are the real stars of this science
fiction promenade. Oh and there’s a
random animated sequence mid-movie put together as a birthday present for the
crew that comes and goes out of nowhere.
After diving into a set and effects heavy sci-fi venture
with Signals: A Space Adventure, Gottfried Kolditz briefly went back
into making ‘Indianers’ or East German westerns which took the sides of Native
Americans pitted against imperialist English colonizers and didn’t return to
sci-fi for another six years. Circa 1976
however, Kolditz returned with In the Dust of the Stars, a German-Romanian
space opera with elements of both Barbarella and a bit of James Bond villainy. Making up for the 1970 film’s sterility and floaty
opacities with a concrete good vs. evil space saga told countless times over in
subsequent epics ala Star Wars or The Man Who Saves the World, it
is a welcome if not a little antidote to Signals: A Space Adventure.
After the crew of the spaceship Cyrano intercepts a
distress call from a nearby planet dubbed TEM 4, they encounter a group of
people who call themselves the Temians and deny having sent the call. After a psychedelic mod-sixties party replete
with pythons slithering about freely on tabletops, hallucinogenic oral spray
and scantily clad disco partiers cavorting about, the crew eventually discovers
another group of indigenous peoples called the Turi have been enslaved by the
Temians forced to dig endlessly into underground mines. Meanwhile the Temians are onto the crew of
the Cyrano and soon an outright war between themselves and the enslaved
Turi breaks out while attempting to scrub the memory of the ship’s captain.
Featuring a psychedelic funky nude dance sequence mid-movie,
some groovy James Bond tortures including a headset some will trace
years later to Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall, In the Dust of the
Stars boasting a hip score by Signals composer Karl-Ernst Sasse and
sleek, mannered 1.66:1 Orwocolor 35mm photography by Peter Suring is pretty
damn cool. Far more colorful and playful
with a more urgent ensemble cast including a stern commander Suko (Alfred Struwe),
sexy heroine Akala (Czech Amadeus actress Jana Brejchova), ruthless
leader Ronk (Milan Beli) and an outlandish flamboyant Chief (Ekkehard Schall)
sporting bright blue hair and a Dracula cape, everyone here is diving headfirst
into high science-fiction camp.
When DEFA eventually disbanded with the reunification of
Germany, the library was turned over in 1993 to the University of Massachusetts
Amherst research center now dubbed DEFA Film Library Umass Amherst and in 1997
a good number of East German films including but not limited to 16mm and 35mm
prints were added to the archive.
Considered to be the singular only archive of East German films to be
curated and studied outside of Europe, the company have taken it upon
themselves to restore and rerelease a number of these films to boutique labels
for either theatrical or home exhibition and in the cases of Gottfried Kolditz’s
two sci-fi epics they have gone above and beyond expectation. In what could’ve been a murky damaged
restoration of problematic elements worn to time and tide, both pictures look
and sound like they were made yesterday.
Scanning the 70mm elements for Signals at 6K
resolution before finishing in 4K with the 6-track audio restored in DTS-HD 5.1
while In the Dust of the Stars received a 2K scan with restored 2.0
audio, both films look pristine if not luminescent. A rare glimpse of East German science-fiction
analogues to renowned domestic classics of the genre that enhances the
conversation about how Eastern Europe contributed to the universe of space
travel imagination, Deaf Crocodile’s deluxe boxed set is one of the strongest
contenders for blu-ray disc release of the year. From the lovely packaging to the amaray case
housed in the hardbox to the extensive booklet featuring essay writings from
numerous critics including Walter Chaw, Gottfried Kolditz’s Signals: A Space
Adventure paired alongside its funky kid cousin In the Dust of the Stars
is a most splendid East German sci-fi double-feature.
--Andrew Kotwicki
