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movie review - Spaceman

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

This is a nicely-paced science fiction story about a solo astronaut from the Czech Republic who is on a mission to investigate a strange feature that has appeared somewhere in Earth-observable space. For some reason, the Koreans are competing with the Czechs in this race, so ambition plays a part in the dangerous journey. Alone for several months on this trip, we are treated to a portrait of the man who is fraying around the edges.

Suddenly, he finds himself no longer alone on the ship. Now there's a large space-faring spider-form alien with a taste for peanut butter communicating with him telepathically. The two dive straight into the deep end, with the mind-reading spider dredging up the astronaut's memories of his floundering marriage.

I enjoyed the ambiguous reality of the alien and how to interpret the mission that it, too, is on. This thing is tonally bleak but consistent, and deliberately paced at just the right tempo. I find it haunting me.

Recommended.