I have been meaning to get around to watching the 1924 Soviet-era science fiction film Aelita, Queen of Mars, after being alerted to it by an exhibition at the Pompidou Centre in 2021, and realising that the centenary year was about to run out, I found it online (various versions are available to watch for free) and sat through it. Here’s a trailer which is launching a new score as well (which I didn’t hear):

I thought it was tremendous. The bits set on Mars apparently established the aesthetic for making things look futuristic for decades after; though I winced at the title character’s “Press your lips against mine, as you do on Earth!” There’s a real vision of another world, even if (spoiler for a film that is literally a century old) it turns out that it was all a dream. The scenes of revolution against the oppressive rulers of Mars are also well done.

But I found the scenes set in the Soviet Union in 1924 almost equally interesting. In the remote radio station where the signal from Mars is first picked up, there is a Bactrian camel chewing the cud in the background, like you have in radio stations. In St Petersburg, there are black marketeers and counter-revolutionaries, and a love triangle, and the lead actor plays two characters who meet up with each other (on split screen) several times. Characters comment on how hard life is in Russia with the ongoing war and the lack of supplies – in a film made in the first year of Stalin’s rule, that went on public release in many countries. It’s a fascinating window into a world when things seemed on the verge of fundamental change.

You can easily find it online with the search engine of your choice.

I thought I had better read the book as well, by Alexei Tolstoy, a relative of the more famous writer. The second paragraph of the third chapter is:

За воротами до набережной Ждановки лежал пустырь. За рекой неясными очертаниями стояли деревья Петровского острова. За ними догорал и не мог догореть печальный закат. Длинные тучи, тронутые по краям его светом, будто острова, лежали в зеленых водах неба. Над ними зеленело небо. Несколько звезд зажглось на нем. Было тихо на старой Земле.

Beyond the gate, an empty lot stretched all the way to the bank of the Zhdanovka. On the other side of the river loomed the blurred outlines of trees on Petrovsky Island, tinged by the melancholy sunset. Wisps of clouds, touched by the sun’s glow, were scattered like islands in the expanse of greenish sky, studded with a few twinkling stars. All was quiet on old Mother Earth.

Unlike the film, the book concentrates on the Martian voyage which is very definitely real, and the hero and his sidekick explore a lot more of the Martian surface, meeting various parts of the social structure and encountering new dangers. It’s better than the average English-language pulp planetary romance of the day, but not a lot better; and it does fill out one’s appreciation for the film, which is much superior. You can get it here.