Review (#7): "Gagarin: First in Space," a Movie Directed by Pavel Parkhomenko (2013)

Gagarin is greeting Hungarian youth on the cover of a Hungarian newspaper, during a visit to Hungary, on August 26, 1961, exactly 57 years ago. His related handwritten message in Cyrillic may be seen beside his left leg.

By Cseperke TIKÁSZ
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What did Yuriy Gagarin feel before his launch to space in 1961? What was Sergei Korolev (the chief Soviet spacecraft designer) thinking as the countdown proceeded? And what about German Titov, Gagarin's reserve? And Valentina Gagarina – the wife, with their two little daughters? We cannot possibly know, of course. What we know from the press coverage of the era is that an euphoric shock would soon be felt across the world, upon Gagarin's return, for Yuriy Gagarin, the first human to do so, has journeyed into outer space!

In 2013, a new film on the subject was released in Russia: Gagarin: First in space (Гагарин. Первый в космосе). The production was financed by Russian goverment money – therefore it had to be a patriotic film, or a propaganda movie, even, many critics rushed to conclude... As to how much truth there is to this? It is true that the Russian goverment financed the project. And the movie does celebrate the results of Soviet-Russian space science, no denying that. It is also, probably, true that we do not gain an entirely accurate insight into the very depths of Gagarin’s soul here.

Yet not everything about the Soviet Union is depicted in a rosy way in the film. Khrushchev may come across as a somewhat distasteful figure. The scientific/technical side is very detailed and mostly accurate – every screw seems to be in its right place, but in the meantime the movie doesn't shy away from showing how everything didn't go perfectly well in the Soviet space programme. Even the famous Nedelin catastrophe, the deadly launchpad accident of 1960, is mentioned in the film.

The 108 minutes of the movie (it's just as long as Gagarin spent in space) begin with sunrise on the big day. We are following Gagarin through the steps of preparation during the 12th of April 1961 and are party to flashbacks as he remembers his life. The excitement is in the air and can be felt looking at the faces of even the last passers-by: the expectation that this is something new, something truly and historically great, and the beginning of something totally unknown yet. For those who were born later, especially the post-Cold-War generations, the movie may really convey the euphoria that was felt in the wake of the first successful human spaceflight.

In the spring of 2014, I was fortunate to have a chance to interview Galina Gagarina (the interview is in Hungarian), the younger daughter of Gagarin. She, along with her sister and her mother, participated in the making of the movie, and she liked the end result. She went to see it in a regular cinema, directly experiencing the reactions of the audience, and was happy to note how even the young generation seemed deeply touched by the film – mission accomplished.

The chance to relive Gagarin's historic moments in space in a well-dramatised and visually stunning way may clearly deserve higher than the film's present IMDB score of 6.6.

Previously reviewed here on EUtopias and Other Futures: "The Chronicle of Yaropol Town," by Yuriy Shcherbak (1968)