Cargo (2009)

I've been trawling the Internet for more sci-fi films lately since I've cannibalised pretty much every single sci-fi film in the English language worth watching. Now the only thing left is to turn my attention to world cinema and see if there is anything out there that's equally as brilliant as some of the best.

So the latest film I've watched is called Cargo - probably the only science fiction film Switzerland have ever made. The film is in German with subs and the subtitles were such a bad translation of what was actually being said that it left me thinking I could have probably done a better job. That and the English translation of the sentences didn't actually make sense at some points in the film. Still this was mostly forgivable because I still got the gist of what was going on even if I had to fill in some of the blanks myself.

This film is pretty visionary in its own right and considering it was made on a miniscule budget the special effects hold up reasonably well. Certainly they're leaps and bounds better than Babylon 5 although in honesty that's not a terribly difficult feat to accomplish. But if a story is well told often even dated  special effects can be overlooked. I do however fall into a school of thought that thinks 2001: A Space Odyssey is distracting because the SFX have dated so much. Perhaps I'm in a minority there. I loved the book but not the film so much really.

So it's a bit difficult to really compare this film to any others since the storyline is mostly original. It steals ideas from other space operas such as Alien and Event Horizon but doesn't end up becoming a stupid horror film, more one of a gritty drama set in deep space. It's difficult to say what this film is actually about as well without giving away crucial plot points. Sufficed to say the story revolves around a future where Earth has been rendered uninhabitable due to several unspecified ecological calamities and what remains of humanity is packed onto cramped space stations. Another world has been discovered - Rhea and the inhabitants of those stations relish the opportunity to settle on this world - a trip that takes years and enormous expense. This is really what the story is about, a cargo ship transporting goods to a deep space station and a doctor attempting to save up the money required to go. The staff man the ship in 8 months shifts alone and film attempts to capture the loneliness and ensuing paranoia as well as things that haven't even really been considered in sci-fi such as how cold the ships would get in deep space. Predictably though as the doctor is nearing the end of her shift it turns out she's not alone and must wake the others to find out who else is there and for what purpose. The film sort of builds to a twist which is the main plot of the film and to say too much would give it away. It kind of becomes very obvious what's really going on long before it's said on screen but it still makes for a damn fine film and a social commentary on corporate malfeasance.

There are some fairly major plot holes in this film and sometimes the actions of the characters make little sense in light of what's going on but the film mostly glosses over these with a backdrop that is artistically beautiful. Not the best sci-fi I've seen but certainly not disappointing. IMDB Rating 6.2/10