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October 17, 2007

DVD: Interkosmos (2006, *** 1/2)

interkosmos_poster.jpg Chicagoan Jim Finn’s first feature film, Interkosmos, is the sort of no-budget experimental lark that shouldn’t work at all, but it’s a lovely thing indeed, a weird original, of 16mm faux-documentary-cum-musical about an apocryphal 1970s Soviet program to train and indoctrinate non-socialist cosmonauts. Unexpected poetry seeps from its willful anachronism. The human figurines in the imaginatively mocked-up footage are convincing physical types sent through routines of a strange utopia that never was. The lovely, low-key score by Jim Becker and Colleen Burke includes several wonderfully goofy musical numbers. Minimalist yet expressive, it’s a real original. Among the eruptions of lilting peculiarity is an underwater battle between slight, great-eyed Nandini Khaund (as the first female Indian cosmonaut) and a large, bright, coiling snake. With Goran Milos, Dean Dematteis, Ruediger Van, Den Boom, Bettina Richards, an animated East German guinea pig, and Finn. [Facets Video, October 23; Ray Pride.]

Posted by Ray Pride at October 17, 2007 11:19 AM

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