Rating: C-
Dir: Dmitriy Vasilev.
Star: Ivan Pereverzev, Konstantin Bartashevich, Mikhail Astangov, Danuta Stolyarskaya.
I was originally hoping this was going to be an entry in our Beginning of the End of the World feature. It would have been cool to have had a fifties movie there, from the other side of the Iron Curtain. This starts in promising fashion, with a tidal wave swamping a research base on Grozny Island. This is executed in a mix of wobbly rear-projection and decent model work. However, it’s really the only moment of disaster porn in the movie, which feels mostly like hard SF. Unfortunately, it’s hard in the same way as a week-old scone: dry and not particularly appetizing. The origins as an adaptation of a stage play are fairly obvious in its staticness.
The lead scientist on the island, Aleksey Denisov (Pereverzev), survives. There’s good and bad news. He brings back samples of plants (top) which possess remarkable properties, and may be an elixir of life. The bad news? Aleksey is going blind and could be terminally ill. His only hope is harvesting more of the plant from the bottom of the ocean. Fortunately – what are the odds? – there is a bathyscaphe in preparation, which can be used to descend into the depths. It’s going to be a perilous journey, pushing the crew of the craft to their mental and physical limits. Meanwhile, Denisov’s assistant and girlfriend Lena Turchina (Stolyarskaya), sits on the surface, furrowing her brow and, for variety, occasionally staring off into the distance.
Chris more or less nailed it, turning to me at the end and saying, “Well, that was very Soviet.” For this is earnest, to the point of being dour. Rather than a fun sci-fi movie, it feels more like you are sitting through a lecture on Five-year Plans and You: Why Your Tractor is Counter-Revolutionary. I’m not sure I remember a point in this at which anybody smiles. I know I certainly didn’t. The original play apparently had a subplot with an American spy trying to stop the hero. Not sure why it was removed from the film version, since it would have provided some desperately needed conflict. About all we get is one guy going mad in the bathyscaphe’s initial dive attempt. Big whoop for that momentary excitement.
Admittedly, this was still four years before humans, in the Trieste, would reach the bottom of the Marianas Trench, the deepest point in the ocean. Perhaps a movie where the climax involves watching a submersible descend, very slowly, had novelty appeal at the time. I did appreciate the stop-motion octopus which shows up. Though rather than blood-curdling terror, its impact was more, “Is it available as a plush toy?” Now, the movie comes across mostly as a glimpse into the period. It’s a time-capsule of an era when Mother Russia was striving to expand its sphere of influence, with not even the deepest ocean depths immune to the reach of anti-capitalist forces. Those sea cucumbers aren’t going to collectivize themselves, are they?