Winner: 2007 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award
The excitement, majesty and extraordinary human accomplishment of the American lunar program of the '60s and early '70s is rousingly captured in IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON, a new documentary presented by Ron Howard. Deftly mixing a treasure trove of archival footage with engaging commentaries of surviving astronauts from all nine Apollo moonshots, this British production will bring it all back for those with first-hand memories of the time, while providing a stimulating primer for younger generations.
The men who actually traveled the 240,000 miles each way in the cramped three-man Apollo capsules are a lively, thoughtful, impressive bunch, by and large; Some are more macho, others humorous or self-deprecating. But to a man, they possess something in common that sets them apart -- a humbled, philosophical side that, whether they state it or not, came from journeying to another world and seeing our own from afar. One can sense that they are changed men for having done what they did -- 24 men have traveled to the moon, and only 12 have ever walked on the surface -- and this sense of a special perspective comes through clearly if uninsistently.
The overwhelming perspective of the moon voyagers is that, from above, Earth looks like a serene but fragile bastion of life hanging in space, a unique oasis in what otherwise appears to be a void. Any film that can remind viewers of this unique viewpoint, witnessed firsthand by so few, would always seem welcome.
variety.com
