posted 09-11-2020 06:09 PM               

Space Dogs

A film by Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter.

Laika, a stray dog picked up by the Soviet space program on the streets of Moscow, became the first living being to orbit the earth when she was launched into space on Sputnik 2. Although Laika would not survive the journey, directors Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter trace the persistence of her memory and legacy into the present day. As the capsule containing Laika re-entered Earth's orbit and began to burn up, the narrator announces "What had been a Moscow street dog had become a ghost."

The ghost Laika lives on in the present-day strays of SPACE DOGS. Photographed at ground level with wandering, hypnotic camera movements, the strays are seen navigating the urban environs of modern Moscow. In hewing closely to the dog's point of view, the city is rendered as a strange, alien environment. Pulsating music from buildings and unidentified passerby take on an unfamiliar quality as the dogs explore this strange new world.

Archival footage of the Soviet space program is interwoven throughout the film, reveling in the bizarre tests and procedures the canines were subjected to in preparation for space travel. The hum of space-age machinery blends seamlessly with the hypnotic drone of the soundtrack, which in turn echoes the alien sounds of the modern city. With stunning cinematography and meditative pacing that recalls the work of Andrei Tarkovsky, SPACE DOGS is a singular work that de-centers humans in order to uncover a forgotten history.

• 91 minutes / Color
  
• Russian / English subtitles
  
• Release: Sep. 18, 2020

posted 09-11-2020 06:15 PM               

Eventually, the duo tracked the footage down to the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow, which conducted much of the dog research and monitoring in Laika's day and continues to support the Russian human spaceflight program today.

"In their basement were super-old reels, nearly untouched and not published at all," Kremser said.

She and Peter eventually convinced the Institute to let them use the footage, which had started to show its age. "We made a full restoration and could offer that the material itself was just preserved, and also put into a new context," Kremser said.

That context is complex and artistic. For starters, "Space Dogs" is not chiefly about Laika and her fellow space explorers; the historical footage comprises less than one-third of the roughly 90-minute film. The bulk of the documentary is devoted to strays on the streets of modern Moscow, especially one young dog with floppy ears who roams the city with charismatic enthusiasm.