For All Mankind

1989 documentary

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Guys go to the moon.

I didn't watch this as a way of celebrating the 49th anniversary of Buzz and Neil and the other guy going to the moon. That was a happy accident.

Geoffrey Unsworth's cinematography is stunning here. He and Kubrick do a great job creating these extraterrestrial scenes. Combined with the Brian Eno score, one that manages to be cold and moving simultaneously, this is a beautiful experience. I wish I could have seen it on the biggest screen imaginable.

My favorite thing about For All Mankind is finding out that these astronauts are just boring Joes, guys who have the same sense of wow that anybody else would have in these situations. One of them comments about how lucky he is to be the particular human being who gets a chance to do this. They crack jokes ("I know they've doing their job right because the moon is straight ahead.") and even use words like "neato" to describe their experiences. The fun two of them are having as they hop and skip around the moon makes astronauts more lovable than you'd guess an astronaut could be.

My knowledge of space exploration is likely very average, but I do know that NASA's not lost any astronauts when landing on the moon. Part of the genius of this documentary is that even with that knowledge, it still forces the viewer to hold breath during the landing. I was on the edge of my seat!

That might have been partially because of a coccyx issue, however.

Lots of poignancy here, moments that inspire thoughts about mankind's place in an impossibly-immense universe. I like some smaller moments, too--the guy who opens and closes the rocket's door and says "Godspeed" to the astronauts. The nomad fires the astronauts observe from space. Merle Haggard's request that a tape of his music is left on the moon.

I'll give the astronaut who claimed the moon was a "totally different moon then any moon [he'd] seen before" credit for a joke, but what's with the dude calling the moon a "really rugged planet"?

Anyway, I loved this documentary. I almost want to have it playing on a wall of my house at all times, and my wife and I listened to Eno's score while playing Qwirkle the other night.