Don’t Mention the Lunar War
Nazis in space? IRON SKY from Berlinale Panorama imagines an alternative 2018 in which the Reich has beaten everyone to the Moon. But are these jokes from the future already outdated?
Timo Vuorensola’s IRON SKY
Pink Floyd called it: there’s something on the dark side of the moon, and it’s not Michael Bay’s Transformers. No, we’re talking Moon Nazis; Astral Aryans who have spent the last few decades developing a final solution they hope to be, well, much more final than their last one.
That’s the zany conceit fueling Timo Vuorensola’s sci-fi sendup IRON SKY running in the Berlinale Panorama; a Finnish, German and Australian co-production that strips STAR WARS of all its thinly-veiled allegories to be, quite literally, a movie about Nazis in space. It wasn’t widely reported at the time, but after things started going pear-shaped on Earth, the Third Reich moved their operations to a giant swastika-shaped base on the moon. Fast forward to 2018, where Sarah Palin is the US President, and the Nazis are putting the final touches on their weapon of mass planetary destruction, one that would have Dr. Strangelove struggle to hold back a salute, and Darth Vader filing for copyright infringement.
The result is a gleefully silly satire that, despite falling shy of lofty expectations, stands as a surprisingly immersive and elaborate sci-fi epic. In fact, the production design and visual effects are so standout, it threatens to betray the film’s delightfully kitschy B-movie premise. Consequently, IRON SKY is virtually indistinguishable from a Hollywood production, and since it’s refreshingly not a Hollywood production, one wonders why it’s trying so hard to be one.
Thus, after a strong first act, the film’s edge is blunted by jokes that feel dated and token as soon as we leave the Reich’s moon base for the White House. Nazis are timeless, but Sarah Palin? Not so much. One gets the impression that the three writers of IRON SKY felt obligated to not only anchor the outlandish concept with references to modern politics, but namely American politics, because that’s where there’s big box office bucks to be made. A more original and – let’s face it – realistic portrait of the future would have the Nazis asking “take me to your Führer” and winding up in Beijing.
But for every joke that falls flat, a healthy number still hit their mark; the packed cinema erupted when a Nazi Earthologist tells her students that THE GREAT DICTATOR is “the best short film of all time.” It’s these moments that make the misguided Americanisation of IRON SKY easier to stomach and, on a whole, keeps the experience enjoyable. Still, one wishes somebody was there to pinch Vuorensola’s during the film’s long and tortuous production to remind him, each day, that he’s making a movie about Moon Nazis. Not Sarah Palin, Moon Nazis. So spare us the snide political commentary and give us the blitzkrieg of B-movie buffoonery we signed up for.
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