Frau im Mond (1929)

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1. 

   Siskoid

   Fritz Lang's Woman in the Moon is apparently one of the first "serious" science-fiction movies, and the almost three-hour silent film did indeed make us of rocket scientists and other experts to present a believable journey to the stars from the point of view of the 1920s. They - surprisingly! - got a lot of it right, but once we get to the Moon, it's strictly fantasy. Perhaps not as fanciful as Georges Méliès' Trip to the Moon, but still completely outside the bounds of even what was known at the time. But the voyage is only a relatively small part of the story anyway. The first act is more of a political thriller, foreshadowing the space race that would actually happen, as Lang slowly presents his characters so that we later care what happens to them (not a given in this genre, as many 50s and 60s films prove). That's where the movie is most lively, in the small character details undoubtedly cut in shortened versions of the epic - a man and his mouse, a ring too large for a finger... - moments that have meaning beyond the purely literal. It's really about a man who wants to get as far away as he can from the woman he loves before she marries another, and how he can't actually escape the situation. As the title suggests, the film's more woke than NASA would eventually turn out to be, and Friede (also the name of the rocket) is the best person on the flight, an active and heroic member of the crew (ow, that arm!), and has a lot of agency even though men attempt to control or protect her at every turn. She motivates the action even if she's not technically the protagonist. Woman on the Moon is long, and it gets less and less believable as it progresses, but it's worth watching as Lang's OTHER sci-fi epic. 4 years 8 months ago
2. 

   Armoreska

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman_in_the_Moon#Influence 5 years 8 months ago
3. 

   AdGuzman

   The restored version made by Criterion is 1 hour 35 minutes long can anybody tell me which version is the best/official? I trust Criterion but checking just in case... 7 years 3 months ago

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