Aniara

With Earth now just about uninhabitable, the “Aniara” - a vast liner-like spacecraft - is heading to Mars when it suffers a technical malfunction at the hands of some space junk. It can only survive if it jettisons all it’s fuel and so is now rendered incapable of propulsion. The captain “Chefone” (Arvin Kananian) has to announce to the passengers that instead of three weeks, it might take them at least two years to get there and that will only be if they can slingshot around something and gain momentum. Initially the travellers are happy enough with their twenty-one restaurants, swimming pools and tanning salons but as weeks become months become years, their behaviour reverts to something altogether more rudimentary. Conscious of this problem, creative scientist “Mima” (Emilie Garbers) wants to try to create some diversions to at least give a semblance of progress on their journey, whilst she also hooks up with the somewhat ritually pregnant “Isagel” (Bianca Cruzeiro) which brings them both joy and complications. When news reaches them of an object approaching, they pin their hopes on it being some sort of rescue ship but with many years now having gone by, what chance it can save them - or that there is really anything left worth saving in what has become a sort of flying tomb? This is quite different from your usual run of the mill sci-fi feature and Garbers does most of the heavy lifting quite well throughout. That is just as well because there are no monsters or laser-battles to distract us as this offers more of an analysis of just how people behave when despair and hopelessness set in. The ship provides a powerfully claustrophobic environment for a variety of characters to learn to cope with the isolation, repetition and interestingly enough here - without any form of revolution or insurrection against a commander and his crew. It’s that psychology that works here, and although the pacing isn’t exactly racy, it does get under the skin a little as it develops and you do start to wonder for just how long their man-made “planet” can last. I haven’t read the Swedish poem upon which it is based so can’t testify to it’s faithfulness to that, but I reckon if Ingmar Bergman were ever to have directed one of his character studies set in outer space, then it could have been this.