Space Tourists

This is sort of a documentary, in that it has a basic story it's talking about, but doesn't quite have enough of a connected line through. It's more a couple of related short pieces that make up a whole.

Space Tourists is about buying your way into space, in that we follow the story of Anousheh Ansari, who paid for a ticket into the Russian space program. Mention is made of how buying a ticket like this diminishes the integrity of the space program, but considering the alternative is no program, I'm going for the side of capitalism.

Also its the story of Jonas Bendiksen, who is photographing the influence of the space program on Russia and the Soviet Union, and related to this is the story of the scrap merchants who pick up the discarded pieces. When booster rockets fall down, people are there to grab it and sell it. And farmers find pieces on their land and make their own use of it.

It goes on a bit too long and, as mentioned, doesn't have an entirely coherent through line. Not a bad movie, but could do with tightening up.



[I saw this at Te Papa's Sounding Theatre. Seats are padded wooden affairs. Not that comfortable, but I've sat in worse. Not sure several hours could be spent there, but I made it through the movie.

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