Badly made sensationalist docudrama for local consumption

The mini-series was originally released on one of Russia's leading TV channels on 11 April 2011 - the eve of the 50-th anniversary of the first manned space flight by Yury Gagarin back in 12 April 1961. Clearly, it was meant to be a celebration feast for all space lovers and Russian patriots. I'm being a bit sarcastic here and here's why. Each episode starts with a declaration by the host: "...we were, we are and we'll stay first in space. This is our space!", hence the title: Our Space. Oh, dear. Not exactly honourable a statement. The movie keeps these propagandist overtones throughout. It may as well have been made during the cold war era.

It first glance it has all the right ingredients: archive footage, interviews with cosmonauts and designers, dramatisation of important conversations, commentary by the host. But oh boy, was it painful to watch. Mainly for the acting, the narrative and badly edited archive footage. Often they pick the wrong footage for the event described. When talking about the fatal accident of Grissom, White and Chaffee they show engines ignition of Saturn V, followed by an explosion of Atlas-Agena vehicle on launch pad (in reality the astronauts were sitting on top of a Saturn 1B rocket and there was no engine ignition, let alone explosion of the entire rocket). In dramatised parts they consistently use wrong spacesuits for soviet cosmonauts. In Gagarin's flight - a high altitude jet pilot helmet, for Voskhod 2 flight - more modern Soyuz spacesuits. Instead of Soyuz launch they show Vostok and vice versa, instead of spacewalk on Mir station - Gemini spacewalk, on-board footage from ISS instead of Mir. Terrible sloppiness. The dramatisation is average at best - so badly written. The narrative is very sensationalist and overly dramatic in places where it doesn't need to be. And I don't even want to go into details of the narrative as there's just too much to mention. The way the whole film is assembled and edited adds to the agony of watching it.

I was quite interested in watching Episode 6 as it deals exclusively with the Moon race. A confusing presentation of "facts" with lots of empty rhetoric. I wrote a separate review of that episode. Anyway, you won't lose anything not watching it. I don't think this movie is available with English subtitles anyway and it's probably not meant to be - would be embarrassing to show something like this on world-wide documentary channels.

Russian cinema is distinguished by its epic scale, philosophical depth, and innovative visual language. It often explores history, ideology, and the human psyche, with a tradition of psychological realism and artistic experimentation. Russian cinema contributed revolutionary theories of editing and later a spiritual approach to film language. It remains known for combining formal experimentation with profound explorations of endurance and belief.

Nikolay Grinko, Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy, and Anatoliy Solonitsyn in Stalker (1979)

The documentary is a form of non-fiction storytelling that aims to present factual information, insights, and perspectives on real-world subjects, events, issues, or people. Documentaries can cover a wide range of topics, including history, science, culture, social issues, nature, biographies, and more.

Dziga Vertov in Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

The drama genre is a broad category that features stories portraying human experiences, emotions, conflicts, and relationships in a realistic and emotionally impactful way. Dramas delve into the complexities of human life, often exploring themes of love, loss, morality, societal issues, personal growth, with the aim to evoke an emotional response from the audience by presenting relatable and thought-provoking stories.

Mahershala Ali and Alex R. Hibbert in Moonlight (2016)

Dramatised reconstruction of the key events in the Russian manned space flight history - from Sputnik and Gagarin's flight to Mir space station. Includes narration by the program host and archive footage.

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