#hugo lilja

there is something inherently terrifying about the idea of how vast and empty space is, which aniara captures in beautiful shots of sheer darkness and tiny stars, through windows, in still intercuts, enveloping the ship. it counterbalances these impressions with shots of human masses, sometimes loud and bright in the shopping mall, sometimes erratic and almost dissociative in the dancehall, sometimes motionless like an art installation under the yellow light of mima, sometimes moving like a single body through the corridors, cramped up in tiny cabins, huddled together in abandoned rooms. the atmosphere is both claustrophobic and overwhelming in its unimaginable endlessness. human intimicy becomes more and more of a farce as desperation envelops and isolates the people on the aniara. these topics are always relevant to the human condition, but appear more so after a good year of intermittent quarantine, and a good decade of growing fears about climate change. the question becomes: what if nothing is out there for us? do our lives still have meaning? can we keep going?

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We discuss Pella Kagerman and Hugo Lilja's existential sci-fi drama Aniara, which is now available on VOD, on The Film Stage Show.

Aniara

The Spear

we saw a vision,

the leanest and the meagrest of visions:

a spear travelling through the Universe