I was really tempted to see Aniara in theaters, but the trailers and summaries sounded too vague to commit to a foreign, artsy fartsy sci-fi film. It was released around the same time a High Life, another foreign, artsy fartsy sci-film set in space. This time, being a completist meant that if I did not see one, I could not see the other, but if I was being fair, I was never going to see High Life because I hate Robert Pattinson’s face, and other than my love for the genre, I did not have a real reason to see Aniara. The marketing was dreadful, and it did not have any internationally known associations. There was no hook.
Let’s see if I can do a better job. Aniara is a Swedish drama set in space, the second film adaptation of Harry Martinson’s Swedish poem—the first was a Swedish television movie. People fortunate enough to escape an environmentally ravaged Earth for a Mars colony face an additional hurdle when their luxurious, three-week voyage experiences a setback that leads to an indeterminate extension of their travel time in space. The protagonist is an employee on the ship who maintains and helps individuals use a machine called a Mimarobe to experience a virtual reality to experience Earth as it was. Her role on the ship changes as the ship’s course extends, and everyone has to make peace with the reality of their new situation. Will they ever make a new home?
Aniara is the perfect film for people who think sci-fi films are usually too two-dimensional by not plumbing the emotional, existential depths of human emotion in the face of overwhelming odds. If a film simply creates an obstacle and the movie only focuses on the logistics of overcoming that obstacle instead of the emotional impact on an individual’s psychological well-being after experiencing extended trauma, uncertainty and the collective effect on a group of individuals, i.e. society, suffering from the same exposure to seemingly insurmountable challenges, then the criticism is fair. This film prioritizes the psychological over the sci fi narrative, which it only uses as a backdrop.
Aniara seems as if it is the midpoint on a spectrum of empty, but efficiently entertaining and straight-forward Hollywood sci fi movies on one end and the surreal insanity of High Life. I appreciated that it was not as demented as High Life where everyone in space was absolutely bonkers, but when people do crazy, it is a familiar brand of weird that ultimately leads to quotidian and boring consequences. Even though High Life is stranger, it is actually the more hopeful of the two—as if new life inherently creates more possibilities whereas the Swedish film suggests that new life is being taught by old life so human nature never transcends a certain level of knowledge since it is always anchored by the old mistakes and knowledge. The technology may improve, but human nature is stuck in a rut. Eventually the technology gets sick of our crap and has to escape us. Life is a trap of futility albeit punctuated with beauty, which is unsustainable.
If humanity has a signature move, Aniara correctly suggests that it is finding a routine and creating a narrative in the face of the unknown to assert some level of control over an unfathomable situation, specifically death or oblivion. They run to the ship and pretend that they can escape the consequences of what happened on Earth. They commodify and commercialize the wonder of space travel. Then everything else is a move to escape what is happening in their immediate vicinity, living on a ship in space. The only difference is spatial measurements and limitations, but the ship is simply a smaller Earth. Earth also had limited life support, but a ship brings that fact to the forefront. There is no escape, and they were always individuals in a fragile environment hurtling through the darkness of space, looking for the light except now it is more literal. People are quite resistant against confronting certain realities and try to run away from it by using these coping mechanisms, which can include the false claim of having a plan to solve it, superimposing a religious explanation on a situation, escaping through self-improvement as a way to pretend as if controlling oneself will lead to collective freedom and reverting to fascism to control people if you cannot control the situation.
Aniara depicts that eventually people realize that none of these coping mechanisms actually solve the problem so they face a choice. Keep moving forward and maybe get nowhere or stop the trip. Bear in mind that moving forward is not necessarily a sign of progress or hope, but the only choice faced by any human being who does not end his or her life before facing a natural death. I really appreciated that this film just grappled with human existence and how sometimes living is just living. Human beings can cause each other great pain by depriving others of certain things or inflicting it and great joy by providing others, but if you remain in the same plane of existence, eventually the joyful aspects become dingy and the torture seems inadequate and flat. Routine can transform from life-preserving to monotonous. At some point, you have to confront reality and cannot escape it.
Aniara makes a 2001 visual reference while simultaneously being anti-Kubrickian by rejecting the idea of mental evolution leading to a transcendence of corporeal form and keeping the story rooted in the reality of bodies trapped in time and space. This film and High Life understand the independent tyranny of bodies over mind. The body often has a will of its own in complete revolt to the body’s bearer. For instance, orgies are all fun and games until a lesbian has consensual, but reluctant, unenthusiastic sex with a man and bam, pregnant. Worst orgy ever. Cautionary tale: never go to a party when you would rather stay home just to make someone happy. You will never catch me. If I related to someone in the movie, it was the woman who never left the bed except for work then when work no longer provides a satisfying outlet, she heads to the bar, which considering that the crew is sustained by a vegan diet out of necessity, would be a factor in its favor.
Aniara asserts a simple truth. For humanity to thrive, not just survive, we need to be on a living spaceship, not a synthetic one. If Earth dies, eventually we do too. While the ecological method is secondary, the protagonist’s memory and memorial to Earth’s memory is ultimately what sustains her and helps others to go on longer albeit on fumes. Existence is less unbearable in the illusion of infinite nature, light, water and awe of natural beauty, as opposed to the reality of empty darkness and confronting being alone. If a planet is a living organism, in order to sustain a connection to others, we must maintain the connection with that larger organism instead of pretending to be independent of it. Independence leads to an unmooring with no anchor. Technology cannot replicate it, and our child would ultimately reject us.