SPUTNIK
Directed by: Egor Abramenko
Starring: Oksana Akinshina, Fedor Bondarchuk, Pyotr Fyodorov
Tatyana Klimova is a Russian psychologist who is invited to consult on an cosmonaut, who is suffering from amnesia following a disastrous return to Earth which has resulted in his copilot's death. Taken to a remote military facility to meet the cosmonaut called Konstantin Veshnyakov, Tatyana is quick to provide a diagnosis but before she can leave she learns that both Konstantin and the base she is in harbour some otherworldly and deadly secrets.
Sputnik is a film which is very entertaining but contains a subplot no one is interested in and is a tad too long for its own good.
The film starts off great with the two cosmonauts wiling away their time in their space capsule until its time to come back to Earth. However a malfunction sets them off early, and a sinister shadow is cast from the capsule window. Crash-landing back in Russia, its discovered that one cosmonaut is dead, the other…
When we meet Tatyana Klimova, she is being grilled by a committee for not following protocol whilst saving a young boy's life. The film's characters are all very aware of the political system they are living in, as can be seen when the chairwoman of thecommittee decides not to introduce the other members - so they can deny their presence later, if need be.
Before a verdict can be given, Colonel Semiradov arrives and invites her to consult on Konstantin, the surviving cosmonaut. It appears Konstantin is suffering from memory loss from the time he crash-landed back on Earth. Tatyana does interview him and surmises he's suffering from PTSD, noting that he's lost the sense of touch in his fingertips, handling a cup of coffee which should have scolded him.
However, later that evening Semiradov reveals the real reason he has Konstantin kept at the facility. In the middle of the night, a large alien parasitic creature vomits forth from his mouth. The creature is well-realised and looks kind of cute until it opens it's mouth and reveals its many, many teeth.
Tatyana continues to interact with Konstantin and starts to wonder whether everything she has been told and has seen to date is the truth, or whether there are more surprises and secrets to be uncovered, and whether Semiradov can be trusted.
Sputnik is set in the mid-80's before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the USSR. It does a good job of evoking the time and there is an overbearing feeling of authoritarianism and oppression. The characters in the film are all fully aware that their every move is monitored and what the cost of failing would be to them.
At 113min, the film does feel a little long and that in part is due to a sub-plot that viewers are likely to have zero interest in, which is the situation regarding Konstantin's handicapped son, living in an orphanage. These scenes have no impact whatsoever on the story at hand and could have been excised from the film.
THE VERDICT
Sputnik is a very derivative film, riffing partly off The Quatermass Experiment among many others but is a very good example of its kind. It has a very striking score, by Oleg Karpachev, and the setting of mid 80's Russia gives the film a very unique feel.
7 out of 10 (MikeOutWest)