ISS: Getting Beyond Earth’s Nuclear Reality

MOVIE INFO:

Tensions flare in the near future aboard the International Space Station as a worldwide conflict breaks out on Earth. Reeling from this, the astronauts receive orders from the ground: take control of the station by any means necessary.

REVIEW:

Balance is needed to reset allegories of war and peace, oxymoronic harmonious discord in the sci-fi nuclear annihilation of earth and what the people in man’s space in the heavens do with that knowledge and awareness in I.S.S (International Space Station).

Three Americans, three Russians live in the most cramped office built for cooperation, goodwil, but not necessarily peace on earth. That has gone up in in sprouting volcanic flames that can be seen and expanding from their observational windows. So to is the call coming from their respective ground controls to take over the I.S.S. by any means necessary.

There is a smartly executed thriller in the spaces between war and peace, between what is right for mankind and duty-loyalty to your nation-birth place. Also some wonderful, discalming visual metaphors- combatants death grip hugs, dissolving into gentle ones, finally to a handshake and arm hold greeting as their life forces fade away, stop, leak into the silent vacuum of space’s eternity; the survivors, an American lesbian woman and a apolitical Russian scientist, the new Adam and Eve, sharing a Soyuz capsule to either a new Eden or more hellscape.

I.S.S. written by Nick Shafir and directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite flashes its warnings early. I knew what was coming but was not expecting the poetry, the devastating bits of common decency , everyday human kindness destroyed by the barbarity initiated by two that believe duty and nation have meaning when the borders have been destroyed and irradiated forever. They live in a pressure cooker, tight spaces, designed to foster cooperation over competition. Not exactly Eden, but as close as man can temporarily get. It’s devastating in the way true tragedy can turn turn pathos into catharsis.

I.S.S. is more interested in what develops in the human head space after the knowledge that everything of value has been lost by the political going ons of those down below. Surveillance imagery maps the gathering disquiet, amps up the “what are they doing over there” musings of both sides. The rhythm and editing cut from earth views, to mid space, to the vaster outer space beyond them. I was always aware of the small, the middle, the universal being shown. Whether this had any effect on others watching depends on each viewer’s distance with the experience of death, the details of existence- how much of a compassionate poetic thinker one is.

Ariana DeBose as Kira is the representation for this compassionate and convincing narrative axis. Her warmth, sincerity, charisma nicely balance her guardedness. She’s the somewhat hero. She knows that her survival and the human races depends on them. I couldn’t fully slot her as either Ridley (Sigourney Weaver) from Alien or Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) from Gravity. In this new space adventure being a hybrid is all that is needed.