Gagarin: First in Space

I can't fault the Russians for pathos when it comes to this story – they made it spectacularly, the way it deserved to be made, because nobody took space firsts away from Gagarin and he ended up in the textbooks, rightly so. It would have looked similar if either an American, Frenchman, Briton, or God knows who else had flown first. But for all the thunderous music and heroic shots, Gagarin is instead pleasantly restrained, well-behaved, and impressive in exactly the scenes that should be impressive (take-off, flight, landing, cuts to the past, perhaps all of the Sergei Korolev scenes). Of course, this is no deep probe into an astronaut's soul like, say, First Man, and it would be a mistake to expect anything controversial, because that's not what it was supposed to be about. It's a celebration, one that as far as I can tell is quite faithful to reality and hilarious besides. But if it had surprised me in any way, it would have been even better. (19/08/2019)

Take the poorest kid from the poorest part of Russia and turn him into the first man in space—a pure Soviet story from the era of the Soviet people. Unfortunately, even the space scenes didn’t quite capture the grandeur that Gagarin deserved. It’s filled with the usual Russian patriotism and grandiosity, but ultimately, it’s not all that compelling. Russian filmmakers seem to handle social themes far better than these kinds of Soviet Union tributes. (13/04/2021)

I wish the Russians had gone more in depth, I wouldn’t mind a longer running time to find out more about Gagarin. In any case, I consider this to be a great film without unnecessary melodrama. Surprisingly, by Russian standards, it was more about the man than the country. (25/07/2021)