iNo space, no one can hear you crying – and that’s also true if you’re in a secret Soviet research facility around 1983, the setting of director Egor Abramenko’s Sputnik. A clever riff on Stranger (and the sequel) that evokes strong tension from assured formal touches and a story that only follows heavy-handed gestures at a few key moments, it is a capable horror show that, like its spiritual ancestor, suggests that terror is born in the womb is – and also that each country is home to its own devious warmongering Paul Reiser.
The untrustworthy official in question here is Colonel Semiradov (Fyodor Bondarchuk), a naughty mystery man with a gray buzz cut and an equally harsh demeanor. For a clandestine mission where he will not tell much at first, Semiradov enlists the help of Tatyana Klimova (Oksana Akinshina), a doctor who is currently grilling for almost a patient drowned as a means of his psychogenic to cure cramps. Drastic measures for the greater good are the specialty of Tatyana, which makes her an ideal partner for Semiradov, who needs her help with a crisis involving Konstantin Veshnyakov (Pyotr Fyodorov), the survivor of a two- man cosmonaut mission that ended in disaster, and which requires risk-taking and breaking rules behind the backs of their Party superiors.
That catastrophe serves as the prologue of Sputnik (now on VOD), though real specs are fuzzy left behind; all we know is that before her ship returned to Earth, a bloodless Constantine complained in anger and killed his co-pilot from a head injury, the duo heard footsteps on the outside of their treadmill. When Tatyana gets a glimpse of Constantine for the first time, he is hypnotized by institutional director Rigel (Anton Vasilev) in a well-kept research room adjacent to his bedroom. Constantine can remember nothing of his ordeal, and does not understand why he is kept under wraps this time, especially since he loves himself a national hero who has sacrificed everything for his motherland. His frustration is compounded by the fact that he is unable to make contact with his mother or son (Vitaliya Korniyenko), who lives in an orphanage that the young wheelchair-bound child is constantly trying to escape.
Sputnik sets up his scene with a modicum of fuss and a healthy dose of mischief. Director Abramenko portrays his institution of the military base as a true spaceship, filled with cold, sterile corridors, fluorescent green lighting, and grim shadows. It is a vision of the Soviet Union of the 1980s as an impressive and foreign world, detached from reality and humanity, and run through threatening figures with little to normal codes of conduct, such as morality. Semiradov is an analytical and unsatisfactory supervisor determined to manipulate Tatyana for his own purposes, and although his real intentions are not immediately revealed by the film, it does not take long before we get an idea of what he is really up to – and what he really is happens in this outpost.
[Spoilers follow]
Konstantin’s first diagnosis of Tatyana is that he has PTSD, but it turns out that his condition is far worse than that. At night, Constantine falls off his bed and sprays a slimy alien creature, one with two elongated arms on which it sticks itself, a giant swaying tail, a pair of stunted legs, and a flat-winged head resembling a stingray. This thing now resides permanently in Constantine, and apparently he has no idea that he is his host; it appears every night for about an hour, cannot hear, and leaves Constantine cold during his short excursions. The alien invader does not seem to harm her carrier, although whether it is a parasite (that is, the grazing of Constantine) or a symbiote (a being intrinsic, harmoniously connected to the cosmonaut) is one of the many puzzles that Tatyana has here brought to resolve.
The enemy is essential Stranger‘s stellar xenomorph – if that organism had been perfectly cool hanging in John Hurt’s chest, and the arrival on screen begins a figurative countdown to the moment Sputnik devolves into a bloodbath that Ripley-ish heroine Tatyana will have to survive. To this end, director Abramenko spends the middle part of his story distorting details about the seemingly evil entity, as well as both Konstantin and Semiradov, the former wrestling with guilt over leaving his son, and the latter deciding to control the creature ( via Constantine, as separate from him) as a weapon. Semiradov is the executioner of the evil military-industrial complex, which makes him a fairly stock antagonist. However, his behavior is in line with the Soviet Union of the 1980s, which claims all the advantages over its enemies during the Cold War, wants to save face (regarding its heroic cosmonaut venture) at all costs, and does not care much sacrificing a few for the glory of many.
“There are terrible revelations to be made about both the intergalactic hitchhiker of Constantine and the ruthless Semiradov …”
There are horrific revelations to be had about both the intergalactic hitchhiker of Constantine and the ruthless Semiradov, and accompanied by a mix of blistering horns and crashing drums suitable for a Christopher Nolan movie, they generally land with satisfactory influence. Less successful is intermittently next to Constantine’s boy, who is leadenely similar to the stranger (look, they are both his children!), As well as an early sequence in which Tatyana reveals a seductive scar along her back (which goes unexplined ) and is then requested by an establishment guard (who is never visited again). One thinks that these last points were related to shortened material that might have been restored in a cut of a director’s future, or in a sequel might be tackled, because despite being a stand-alone affair Sputnik nevertheless, a concept ideal for follow-up installations.
Along with its visual brilliance, slippery camerawork, and hurtful CGI effects, the fact that Abramenko’s film is a potential franchise starter marks a communist time story in a distinct Hollywood mold. Like countless efforts for it, Sputnik is the descendant of Ridley Scott’s Nightmare in 1979, a modernized mutation that resembles its parent and yet develops in its own unique way. Using American film techniques to tell a story about the devastation inflicted on a Soviet invader, it is an out-of-this-world thriller that speaks formally as a sly commentary on the victory of the Soviet Union. United States – then, and now – In an East-West struggle for global cultural supremacy.
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