Departure for the moon: powerful visual evacuation command for the first time on free TV

Departure to the moon
Impressive suicide mission for the first time on free TV

Test pilot Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) keeps getting away with his life

© (c) Universal Pictures

On January 30th, Ryan Gosling is also shot at the moon on free TV. Here are the reasons why "Departure to the Moon" broadens the horizon.

Neil Armstrong's "small step for a person" on Earth's satellite has been more than 50 years ago. His moonwalk only came to the cinema in 2018 thanks to "Aufbruch zum Mond". Quite a good thing, because Neil's moon ride could not have been staged in such a technically impressive manner before. But is "Aufbruch zum Mond", which celebrates its free TV premiere on Vox on January 30th, also in terms of the plot, so good film fare that it does not seem from this world? Or does director Damien Chazelle (36) himself have to be shot to the moon for this?

Family man and pioneer – that's what "Aufbruch zum Mond" is about

The year is 1961: test pilot Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling, 40) barely escaped with his life on a risky flight to the limit of the atmosphere. More than the regular horrors of his job, however, a tragedy within his own four walls troubles him. His daughter Karen, who is just two years old, suffers from a brain tumor. Although Neil and his wife Janet (Claire Foy, 36) do everything they can to save Karen, one day in the little girl's young life, any help comes too late.

Shortly after the death of his daughter, Armstrong applied for the so-called Project Gemini of NASA. Despite the stroke of fate and the possible impact it could have on Neil's psyche, he is accepted as an astronaut and soon finds himself in the middle of a global race. Which nation will be the first to provide the man who will set foot on the moon? The USA or the Soviet Union?

Well-known story, fresh approach

Warning, spoilers: Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon. Even the greatest history grouch in this universe should be aware that one shouldn't turn on "Aufbruch zum Mond" because of a surprising ending. Even more demanding than in the comparable film "Apollo 13" with Tom Hanks and Kevin Bacon was the task of director Damien Chazelle to stage the path as the goal in his film. He succeeded. Masterly.

This is mainly because the real Armstrong family managed to keep a large part of their private life private and therefore little was known about it. The hero, the pioneer, the patriot Armstrong – these facets of his life do not make "Departure to the Moon" special. However, their comparison with the battered father of a family, who was literally driven from the earth by his endless grief over the loss of his little daughter.

Highlights in the second row

As expected, "Aufbruch zum Mond" did not become a one-man show. Even if a large part of the film is about Neil's training as an astronaut and his journey to the moon, Claire Foy is at least equal to his wife Janet. Similar to Felicity Jones' Jane Hawking in "The Discovery of Infinity", it is Foy's lioness struggle against powerlessness that is captivating. As more and more women astronauts become widows around Janet, she secretly asks herself when the NASA officials' car would stop at her doorstep with the sad news in its luggage.

Foy shows impressively that behind every "first man" there is a strong woman. Gosling, who with his mostly stoic look fits perfectly into the obsessive-pragmatic world of space travelers, is almost drowned out. Here, too, a look at the private man Armstrong holds the greater potential for Gosling to shine as an actor. As hardened as he is in the cockpit of his infernal machines, as a father he gets weak knees time and time again and sheds bitter tears. And so he would almost not have said goodbye to his two sons before leaving for the moon.

But that doesn't mean that his all-adventure degenerates compared to the snore festival, on the contrary. Above all, his first step on the moon lets the hair on the back of the neck begin to applaud on command even 50 years after the real milestone. Incidentally, the debate regarding the under-patriotic placement of the American moon flag in the run-up to the cinema release was exactly what was to be expected: a lot of hot air. And whether a historically inaccurate, but extremely emotional scene on the moon should have been – the more or less indulgent audience is welcome to argue about that.

Shake, shake, shake

Whether behind the wheel or at the kitchen table: Chazelle relies on a stylistic device when staging both "worlds" by Armstrong – the wobble camera. While this is consistent with the action sequences and puts the viewer in the confusing turmoil that pioneering work in space consists of, he overdoes it in the other cases. With a coarse-grained filter, it gives the 140-minute film a documentary 60s look anyway, so it would have been enough in the quiet sections of the film even without the Shaky-Cam.

Overall, the look of the film is beyond any doubt. This is proven by the very first sequence of the film, with which Chazelle suddenly plunges the audience into the madness that opening up the unknown was at that time. And so a "Departure to the Moon" dismisses one thought: "How in the world could people ever voluntarily go on such a literal suicide mission?"

Conclusion:

Damien Chazelle has succeeded in creating an exciting mix with "Aufbruch zum Mond". He contrasts the familiar historical circumstances with the largely unknown private life of the Armstrongs. The result is a film in which the two main actors Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy know how to inspire. And sometimes more at the kitchen table at home than in the Apollo 11 rocket – or on the moon.

SpotOnNews