Part of Uchronias and Dystopian Futures: Latin American Science Fiction Cinema of the 21st Century
Sunday, April 14, 2019, 6:30 p.m.
Museum of the Moving Image - Bartos Screening Room

Introduced by Guest Curator Itala Schmelz; with discussion after the screening

Dir. Fernando Spiner. Argentina. 2004, 100 mins. In Spanish and Italian with English subtitles. With Alejandro Urdapilleta, Alejandra Flechner, Gabriel Goity. 

Set in the year 2068, Goodbye Dear Moon is a film with regional roots that doubles as a space opera. To save the earth from natural disasters and catastrophes, an Argentine scientist proposes to destroy the moon against the advice of the international community who has threatened to sanction Argentina. When a group of astronauts directed by the scientist attempt to bomb the moon from a rocket, the moon defends itself by sending out a mysterious force that makes the astronauts hallucinate. Reality suddenly becomes twisted, and the earthlings lose their sanity in a style reminiscent of Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972). The film also touches on discourses surrounding womanhood and femininity: a female astronaut in the group falls in love with a powerful extraterrestrial being—an unknown spirit or God who takes the form of a tango dancer. They escape together while the spaceship is destroyed by the Argentinians.

Comedia costumbrista y a la vez space opera, esta película resalta por el gran ejercicio actoral. Para salvar a la Tierra de las catástrofes naturales que la acechan, un científico argentino propone destruir la Luna. Los astronautas intentan bombardearla desde un cohete, pero una fuerza misteriosa de la luna se defiende, generándoles alucinaciones. La realidad se vuelve extraña, los terrícolas pierden la cordura al estilo Solaris de Tarkovsky. El film también cuestiona los discursos de género sobre la mujer. La astronauta se enamora de un poderoso ser extraterrestre, una suerte de espíritu o dios sideral que se materializa en un bailador de tango y escapan juntos mientras la aeronave es autodestruida por los argentinos, ante la molestia de las potencias mundiales.

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