Aniara — A Review
Aniara is a film that begins with a sequence of furious storm conditions. We ride upward in a space elevator along with the protagonist, boarding a ship that is scheduled to reach Mars in 23 days.
The first moments of the film tell a story — simply by the play of light across the faces of those we see. The world has suffering global climate change induced catastrophe. The people riding upward are scarred, burned and broken. They seek a new life on another planet.
Everything about Aniara that makes so amazing, beautiful, and unpredictable — can be found in those few moments. We are told by simple observation that the world is no longer habitable. The main character, whom we will know later as Mimarobe — is in the business of helping others to relive happy memories. She is in charge of a device called Mima — that takes the images and feelings from within our mind and presents a virtual reality we can experience almost as if it’s real. And when we look up, it disappears. There’s something strangely disquieting about seeing people experience Mima — they lie down flat on the ground, face down — as if they are already dead.
The tale of the journey of the ship Aniara — is one that I will leave to the film. But the interplay between the characters of the film is what we’ll focus upon. We see in the beginning of the film the physical scars, but as the film progresses we also experience emotional, psychological, and spiritual scars. These eventually lead to a moment in the film where we are confronted with a form of darkness that places everything into context. And yet, the conclusion of the film seems to fill us at once with light, and wonder.
For me, it is this strange and beautiful dance that defines the magical experience of the film. Life is attempting to escape the planet from which it came. And perhaps — somewhere along the way — we discover that even the destination it attempts to reach — is somehow akin to the way in which it would. Aniara is in itself, a form of planet — all on its own.
We give way to human forms of connection — including the need to feel a part of something, and distant love. We almost feel this on the way up — as the harsh unfiltered light of a distant sun shines upon the scarred face of the person with whom we’re travelling. The images of disaster are still in our mind. We are forced to acknowledge that we are organic, and frail — and that the larger story of our planet will now be written without us. A woman says to a child — do you want to say Goodbye to Earth? The child doesn’t reply.
And again, in the love interest of the main character. We stand at a distance and admire from afar. But also, perhaps — a moment in the early part of Aniara’s journey -when the compiled weight of the dreams and nightmares of the people combine together with an awful resonance that leaves us shattered. We see brutality. But also, love.
And through the course of the film we see this ability to love, and to hold on to life — embodied in a strange way in the arc of the story of the main character. We see her in a physical sense, but also — as a person who lives for love, and believes in the power of love. She fights to save Mima. She fights to save the sanity of those she’s flying alongside — and as Aniara heads out into the dark — she faces her own darkness. Finally giving way to physical transformation in a circle of friends.
The final moment of Aniara is breathtaking, and profound — and it is done so elegantly that we’re left with not only the answer to our question — but also new questions. Life glistens in the dark.
And a planet — in its own way — touches another. The vast expanse of time and space seemingly overcome. The film deals with themes of suicide, loss, love, hope, and it is set in that vast, expansive universe of science fiction where those of us that long to see the capitol ships fly — soak every single image of the Aniara — as she makes her way across the stars. The imagery is reminiscent of 2001 A Space Odyssey — except that Aniara strips away the stylistic approach of Kubrick in favor of the real, the sensual and the physical.
There are moments of hope. And moments in which hope dies. But through it all — we see the strange persistence of life — the weird way in which love, memory, emotion, spirit, and thought — weave together to create a framework in which a cell of memory — or physical form — seems to harbor an enduring sense of the tapestry of our connection. We stand now on a living planet.
We wonder how we came to be. We run from pain. We run to pleasure. The living worlds out there are objects of fascination — almost unreachable — we ask ourselves if we will ever see or hear from any of the 36 other civilizations that inhabit our Galaxy.
Aniara is a film that helps us to understand how perhaps the greatest measure of that connection is that we are alive and breathing. A sense, that some familiar, overwhelming thing exists. And that our story finally has an end.
The film is Swedish — and it comes on the heels of other great films — such as “Let the Right One In” and “Border” . The characters of all of these films are searching — for connection, acceptance, love but also seeing the darker side of our world and somehow connecting with their own niche — like a rock formation cast into the side of a cliff that harbors a tide pool of life. In the film “Let the Right One In” the main character falls in love with a vampire — discovering undying love in the undead. In “Border” it is a woman who discovers that she might be a troll, always told she could never have children — using her sense of smell to discover the truth. In Aniara, a film based on an opera and a poem — the main character seems to be able to reach out across a vast expanse of time to hold that one tiny spark of life, and though in the film we see that spark dim, and fade. It never goes out.
Some of us will watch films, during a pandemic — to make ourselves feel good and forget the world. But others will see the natural world evolving and reshaping life and will feel a sense of dark wonder. Aniara is that film — an adventure, a romance — and in some ways — perhaps — a final love letter from Earth.
But let’s be clear. If Aniara is a love letter — there will be no glitter. There is no scented envelope. There are no cute handwriting loopy hearts at the tops of the letter I. Aniara is a film that leaves you nothing to fall back upon. It asks you to peer into the abyss. And like the recent strategy of the Swedish Government — as they faced pandemic — suicide weaves its way into and out of the picture in a way that breaks your heart. Aniara is not for the weak. But it is beautiful . It defines a new genre — the Space Opera. Aniara’s excellence in production, character, plot and imagining — gives us a world in which we can imagine ourselves — moving through the unknown. It is without doubt the best Science Fiction film of 2020.
