Gone Fishing

The crew goes down in Europa Report

«««Europa Report. Written by Philip Gelatt. Directed by Sebastián Cordero. Available now on demand on iTunes. Opening in selected theaters on 8/2.

We're living on the eve of a new golden age of exploration. The Mars rovers, for example, have turned that planet from a point of light in the sky to a real landscape, a place both alien and vaguely like southern Utah. In exactly two years, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will visit Pluto, the last planet (technically, "dwarf" planet) in our solar system to be seen up close. Meanwhile, astronomers are busy cataloging hundreds of worlds beyond our solar system—an impossible dream for the entire lives of most of you reading this review—including some that appear capable of sustaining life

          We're living on the eve of a new golden age of exploration, but you'd never know it from our movies. Instead, Hollywood is determined to recycle old superhero franchises, vampires, zombies, and 60's-era TV shows. Star Wars is about to get new episodes, but since when has Star Wars been remotely concerned with, you know, the stars? Even the rebooted Star Trek seems disinterested in actually in going where no man has gone before, preoccupied as it is with duels against arch-terrorists. Instead of awe and excitement, the prevailing mood in Hollywood movies seems to be gloom. Knights are always "dark knights", Thor is stuck in "dark world", soldiers are always "winter soldiers", and the starship Enterprise is hurtling "into darkness".
          In this dour environment Sebastián Cordero's low-budget Europa Report comes as a welcome splash of light. Made with less money than Stanley Kubrick spent in 1968 on 2001: A Space Odyssey, it's the story of a polyglot crew of a privately-sponsored expedition to Jupiter's "ocean moon". Cordero himself is a newcomer from Ecuador, and Report features no stars—unless you count District 9's Sharlto Copley as an up-and-comer.

          To overcome his budgetary limitations, Cordero opts for the "found-footage" premise used in The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, Chronicle, and perhaps most relevantly, the not-so-bad Apollo 18. It's a conceit that is showing its age, but combined with the detailed realism of the treatment (reportedly contributed by NASA), the final product is perhaps the most visually convincing put on film at any price.

          According to the script by Philip Gelatt, the "Europa One" mission was conceived to explore the possibility of life in the ocean thought to exist under the moon's icy crust. As far as private space tourism has advanced lately, going all the way to Europa is a wildly risky investment—it's a two year trip just to get there, with a miles-thick ice cap to drill through to reach any water. Sure enough, the interplanetary fishing trip starts to go bad when a solar flare fries the ship's communications gear, leaving it cut off from Earth. The crew (Daniel Wu, Michael Nykvist, Christian Camargo, et al.) elect to keep going—and why not? Captain Cook explored the Pacific on voyages just a long, with smaller ships, without ever getting technical advice or Daily Show reruns sent up from home.

          Authenticity aside, Report is structured in pretty standard fashion, with the crew members falling one-by-one to the consequences of their choices. What is refreshing about it, though, is the way it restores a sense of idealism—of purpose worthy of sacrifice—that went out of space movies since Alien envisioned its crew of low-brow, for-hire space truckers in 1979. The idea of exploration as an expression of the best in ourselves almost qualifies as innovative, especially in the context of a "private" venture, with nary a national flag to be seen. When the ship is launched, their employers don't reiterate the terms of their contracts—they serenade the crew with The Blue Danube. All that's missing is the preserved head of Richard Branson wishing them good luck and godspeed.

          The film obviously could have benefitted from somewhat more than a mini-budget. At times, we yearn not just to see the actors responding to some off-screen threat, but to actually see what's going on. But the solar system is still a better place with smart indies like Europa Report in it.

© 2013 Nicholas Nicastro