About Im Staub der Sterne (1976):
After landing on TEM 4 following a distress call, the crew finds Temers denying sending it. At a ruler’s party, drugged food clouds their minds. Navigator Suko, alone on the ship, makes a horrific discovery.
Who could possibly resist an insanely groovy mid-1970s East German space opera with an Ennio Morricone-like theme song, a nonstop underground disco where partygoers spritz hallucinogenic mouth-spray, scantily clad super-models voguing in an abstract sculpture garden, tons of silver glam-rock boots and glittery eyeshadow and red leather space-suits, and dialogue like “Thob, I’ll upload them to the Lambda channel” and “The Temians are fun people — fun and a little crazy”?! Director Gottfried Kolditz’s delirious gem of Socialist eye-candy ranks alongside Mario Bava’s PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES as one of the most eye-popping genre treats of the era, with generous helpings of ZARDOZ, “SPACE: 1999,” and “BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25th CENTURY” thrown in for good measure. In German with English subtitles.
Not too long ago, we discussed an earlier film directed by Gottfriend Kolditz: Signale: Ein Weltraumabenteuer (Signals: A Space Adventure) (also with a Deaf Crocodile Blu-ray release). Released six years later, Im Staub der Stern is a remarkably different film in tone and structure. While Signale is meditative and utopian in its approach to its political theming, Im Staub der Sterne is more explicitly plot driven and more explicitly centered around ideological (and physical) conflict. These are, in this respect, opposite visions. Whereas Signale posits a future in which humanity has accessed the stars and abandoned its violent pursuits, making conflict as one between humanity and nature (or the philosophical self), Im Staub der Sterne suggests that some of the vulgarities that plague human society will be found amongst the stars, too, reproducing the problems of human societies of the 20th century. It’s that shift, that perspective, if you will, that I find rather fascinating about this Star Trek-esque space mystery.
It dawns on me that we live in an age in which there are people who might view something like Star Trek has lacking explicit political content. This is, of course, absurd, as evidenced by the countless allegories in that famous franchise about real-world issues. In conversations with genre fans and critics, I’ve noted the unoriginal idea that part of what makes science fiction so effective as a genre (or supergenre, as I like to call it) is its ability to tell stories about uncomfortable subjects by essentially tricking the audience into a zone of comfort. That same activity takes place in Im Staub der Stern. Its core plot is a conflict between two dramatically different societies: the crew of the Cyrno, who are here responding to a mysterious distress call, and the Temians of TEM 4, who are trying to get said crew to go away so their secrets aren’t revealed. Even before we know that they rely on slave labor, we’re primed to be suspicious of the Temians. They’re introduced to us with obvious social hierarchies — women serve the men in a subservient role — and our glimpses behind the Temian scenes reveals that they live in a top down society with a “boss” at the top. This is in stark contrast to the crew of the Cyrno, who operate as a kind of collective with Akala (Jana Brejchová) serving loosely as the commander. On its surface, these are the concerns of a future society so distant from our own that there is no direct connection to the politics of “now” (or of 1976). Yet, the more one examines the crew of the Cyrno, the clearer it becomes that they come from a society similar to the one we saw in Signale (i.e., an idealistic, social democratic collective); the same inspection of Temians reveals a fascistic capitalist society. It’s this contrast that I find myself so compelled, so much so that I re-watched this film three times before writing this review.
One of the first pieces to this political puzzle is revealed through the set design. Unlike the crew of the Cyrno, who exclusively operate from a spaceship that is maximally practical in its design (with minimal space for personality outside of individual crew quarters), the Temians are immediately presented to us through their ostentatious sets of gold, morbid and abstract suspended art, and furniture designed for comfort and to display their wealth and power. One of the most blatant presentations of this visual style is in the party sequence, which the Temians put on for the crew so they can use a brainwashing computer on them. The sets are lavish, with suspended swing beds, large buffets of food and drink, pythons and boas, gold and jewels, overt drug use (via an amusing spray can technology that made me think of Philip K. Dick’s Ubik), and more, all in a package that reminds one of the colors of a ’70s disco and, by implication, a psychedelic orgy. The women in the scene — as in all scenes of this film — either serve refreshments or serve as exotic dancers. Later, when we meet the boss (Chief, played with unhinged abandon by Ekkehard Schall), the decadence and hedonistic nature of this society emerges into dramatic clarity: one of maximal control (slaves and servants) through drug-supported violence and of obscene displays of material and social wealth. I’m reminded, too, of a scene in which the Chief’s second in command, Ronk, lounges on shiny, goldish-upholstered chairs in the middle of a mine shooting toy airplanes out of the air — another display of power and violence meshed with decadence and hedonism.
All of this also helps explain, for me, the plot. On the surface, the story is rather simple and, at times, seemingly illogical. The Temians seem to allow our heroes to survive encounter after encounter, even after Suko (Alfred Struwe) and Thob (Leon Niemczyk) discover the true identity of the Themians — and the former is tortured for it. Their plans to stop the Cyrno from revealing their secrets are even more strange because they involve all manner of tactics other than the obvious choices. Yet, I think it’s the aforementioned visuals that provide reason to these plot elements — and even the elements of this story that some have called “cheesy.” Everything we learn about the Temians in this film suggests they are extremists at a fundamental level, so much so that logic doesn’t dictate how they behave. Feeling, however, does. Rage, fear, the joy of manipulation, and, most importantly, desire (for power and more). Their very society is grounded in these emotions, and it blinds them to the reality that they are utterly dependent on the labor of others for their material and emotional obsessions. For me, the flaws of the plot — and there are many — or other aspects of the production — are besides the point. This is not a story whose plot needs to be perfectly harmonized with the rest of the production for me; the plot needs only to support the visual message of the film, one that is as ostentatious as its Temian antagonists.
For this reason, I find myself disagreeing with critics who find fault with the film for its, among other things, cheesy ’70s direction, poor characterization, or even confused in its ideological slant. In many ways, this is the Kolditz science fiction film I would turn American audiences on precisely because within its familiar, TV-style plotting (i.e., classic Star Trek vibes) is a visually-rich tapestry of metaphors and symbols, densely imagined and vibrantly presented. At times, sure, the film relishes its visual stylings — the party sequence is a great example — and these might elicit laughter. But, for me, that laughter is an uncomfortable laughter rooted more in the stylings of the time than in the narrative meaning or direction of the story. The Temians, after all, are not weak antagonists disconnected from reality by a propagandistic intent. They are, ironically, already sitting in the halls of power right here at home in the United States. We have our own Chief with his own spray can drug. If we’re lucky, we also have our own crew of the Cyrno, too.
