Bajkonur, Terra
2018 / 74m - Italy
Documentary
2.0*/5.0*
Baikonur. Earth poster

Watches

July 28, 2021

2.0*/5.0*

Part documentary, part mood piece. Director Andrea Sorini's intentions are laudable, but the execution is a bit too basic. For a project like this, the cinematography and score need to be exactly on point. Sadly, it came off quite generic and derivative, which made it quite a chore to sit through.

Sorini travels to Kazakhstan, where we find one of the first launch sites for space rockets ever built. It's here that the first Sputnik rockets left Earth in search of unexplored territories. It's a doc that explores lost glory amidst barren landscapes, white keeping an eye out for the people that were left behind.

There's very little dialogue or explanatory text, instead Sorini registers and lets the images speak for themselves. It's certainly a pleasant approach, but the lifeless framing and the predictable soundtrack don't have the intended effect. The first 15 minutes were quite intriguing, the rest of this doc turned out to be a pretty big slog.