D.
Jean-Pierre Matisse
Colour
It’s odd that the French film ‘Le Cosmonaute Rend Visite à
Adrienne’ was given the English title ‘Adele and the Astronaut’, as the future
we are shown seems to be one where the Americans are completely wiped out. An
astronaut is obviously a term for an American voyager to space, and yet the
spaceman we meet is Terence Stamp and very British. (Very cockney in fact, so cockney
that one briefly wonders whether the future will be a nightmare vision of
jellied eels and rolling out the barrel). He isn’t remotely American. Indeed
Americans aren’t mentioned at any point in the film and so the impression we
get is that there are no Americans in the future. So this film, made at the
height of the space race, two years before the moon landings, seems to go out
of its way to suggest that in outer space there will be no room for the Yanks.
How are we to read this? To theorise that years from now all
Americans will have been wiped out is probably a step too far. This is a film
which posits a totally idyllic future in store for us, one where all citizens
are happy, where their minds are totally open to new experiences, where love
and contentment are universal rights. As such it would be odd if such a future
was built on the total genocide of the whole American nation. It would be more
than a tad icky to think of a future so beautiful built on such brutality to
Uncle Sam. But the French film makers do seem to be saying – at the height of
Vietnam, with riots right across The States – that true brotherly love can only
take place without the Americans there. So if that’s the case, what happened to
them? If we discount genocide, then what
else is there? Maybe they flew in away in their spaceships and have headed to
Mars, where they now have all the wars their blood thirsty souls could possibly
desire. Or perhaps they have transcended to whatever giant shakes, chilli cheese
dogs, large fries on the side place in the sky Americans call nirvana.
Whatever. The French are making this film and they have
decided NO Americans. And that it makes it interesting. After having seen and
read so much American science fiction, it is intriguing, as well as somewhat
jarring, to see a version of the future from which Americans have been totally
excluded.
Catherine Deneuve is a futurist living in swinging London.
By any measure she has made quite a good life from this nebulous profession of
predicting the future, kitting herself out with a good pad and the fanciest
designer clothes. But there’s one thing missing from her life and that’s a
lover. That all changes one sunny morning however, when a man arrives from the
heavens (actually there’s a blinding light in her bathroom and he steps out of
that. So rather than the heavens it’s a toilet, but the principle is the same).
He is spaceman, Terrence Stamp. A
creature from the future, part of the British stellar expedition force
(which isn’t as mad as it sounds, the British were trying to make strides
towards space in the late sixties), who has volunteered to be part of the new
time travel programme. The technology is still in early days though and so
Terrence has found himself transported back to the 1960s and Catherine. The reason
for this is that she’s apparently is his true love - even though she was born a
couple of hundred years before him, which suggests Cupid has one weird sense of
humour.
Terrence takes Catherine to visit his time, so she can
compare it to her visions. What we’re given is a very sixties version of the
future, where the phones are still the clunky same (and people actually still
use phone-boxes for calls, and not just urination), the skirts are much shorter
and mop-top bands are very much in fashion. The Beatles though are passé, which
must have looked an odd conclusion to reach in 1967. There are also zeppelins,
and that’s actually one of the things Catherine predicted correctly.
(Seriously, what is it with futurologists and zeppelins? Why do they believe
that the future will be filled with them? It’s seventy years now since the zeppelin
was last a serious mode of transport, face it: zeppelins aren’t making a
comeback). This future is a very 1960s ideal of brotherly love and peace, and
it’s all so wonderful and everybody is so happy, and it’s truly and remarkably
dull. The future is bright and its lovely, but nothing actually bloody happens.
Eventually to add a bit of drama, it’s realised that the gorgeous young lovers
can’t sustain their relationship over the timelines and must separate. It’s sad
as Terrence Stamp and Catherine Deneuve may be the best looking couple in
cinema history, and through their peaceful and non-threatening and
non-adventurous adventures, we’ve grown to kind of like them. For those who are
still awake, it’s a little bit sad when they part. But at least when Catherine
returns to her timeline, she knows that the future is safe and beautiful. And
who knows? When she gets married and has kids and grandchildren and so on,
maybe Terrence will turn out to be a descendent of hers. (Come on, I was bored.
The film wasn’t offering me any spice, so I had to create my own).
It’s a pleasant film, an optimistic film, but it is the kind
of film to make your eyelids beg for mercy. Say what you will about the yanks,
at least they know to add a bit of action to these things.
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