Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

..then people would understand it in its full beauty. It seems many reviewers condemn it for the particular - such as a poor example of scifi cinema robot or alien (the latter competing with that of Dark Star), or a sequence where a villain is found to be ticklish, which sets them oblivious as to the signifiance thereof and the movie's meta-narrative. For me, this film is of the school which performs a deftly deceptive lightness of touch around profound issues. But here, uniquely, we see utilised measured and studied absurdist interludes, and a romantic dreamlike dynamic. I write 'deceptive', because at its core, if you care to look deeper into the pool, there is a story which is a subtle yet quite profound exposition of and meditation on the nature of isolation; the yearning inherent in loneliness (who in their heart didn't hope for Neeya to be comforted with kisses and held in a loving embrace by Stepan before the end?) the transitory nature of being; how great beauty can exist alongside great tragedy; the whole wrapped in an environmental parable. Oh, and the soundtrack is powerfully evocative, like a fleeting nimbus of forgotten childhoods around quotidian adulthood; the shimmering whimsical harpsichord figure alternating with tone-poems and Kraftwerkian industrial-electro grooves on analogue synth are utterly fitting.

You have to remember you're watching a low-budget Soviet Sci_Fi film from 1980. So yeah, it has that 70's/80's sci-fi look and some cheesy effects (which I actually prefer to CGI, personally). The English translation is decent and doesn't leave anything out.The section where she tries to live on Earth is a little slow and I did not really understand the connection to the film, but I enjoyed the opening bits and the parts on Dessa.The imagery of the destroyed space lab and then later the gas masks and the posters in the tunnels was definitely ahead of its time.Apart from the imagery which I enjoyed, the best reason to watch this film - is the prescient display of how people who make money off the destruction of the planet will fight to keep their wealth, even at the cost of the planet. We also see the politicians bribed with money and power to spread lies and fear in oder to fight any change. And even the average citizen can be preyed upon to work against their own interest.

This movie begins when a spaceship discover another, derelict spaceship of unknown design and origin. They mount a salvage operation and discover that the crew are human of appearance but with considerable genetic differences. All but one (a woman) are dead.Next, a group of scientists and officials discuss what to do with this alien called Neeya. They all want to study her, but should she be allowed to study humans as well? She doesn't seem to be able to communicate but has strong mental/telekinetic abilities. They decide to let her live in the house of one scientist with his family, under close surveillance.As the story progresses we discover that she has a control center in her brain that allow others to take control over her - she has been designed like some sort of robot! Added to this story is a cast of interesting characters, a very unique alien, and lots of twists and turns to the main story.The special effects are not as good as one have grown accustomed to from recent top-of-the-line Hollywood blockbusters, but they are okay, and manages to avoid being cheesy (which is the most important in my humble view).All in all it is an excellent science fiction movie. I saw it in the theaters at a recent film festival in a restored version (from 2001 with English subtitles) and it was well worth the time and money. I give it 7/10 and recommend it to you all.

Cherez ternii... was released when I was a boy of 14 living in the Soviet Union and hungry for anything sci-fi. Well, this one fit the bill perfectly. With a typical 1980s story (ecological catastrophe, hints on the "soullessness of the capitalist society") and special effects somewhat more advanced than those of the British Dr. Who series, it still was two heads above anything else released in the USSR until then.The film became an instant hit.Now, keep in mind that we could not see the Star Wars or any other of the many Western sci-fi flicks of the time, with rare exceptions. And the sci-fi culture of the "socialist camp" was, no pun, campy. Special effects were typically like those of the early Dr. Who series (not that we had heard anything of Dr. Who either), and the plot simple as a nursery rhyme. In this context, Cherez ternii was a star indeed.Plus, the nude scene, albeit short, was unusual for the Soviet cinematography of the time and rather attractive to the boys who had just advanced to the adolescent state.All this made the fan base of the movie as wide as the Soviet Union itself, which is about as wide as Russia is now. Speaking of which, those boys of 1981 are today grownups, and so they decided to re-release Cherez ternii, with an improved picture and sound quality and somewhat rehashed frame sequence. If you understand Russian and decide to watch it, you can order it online.As an adult, I would rate Chere Ternii k Zvezdam about the same as an average Star Trek episode, no better, no worse. Wish I could see Star Trek when I was a child.The director of Cherez Ternii, R. Viktorov, made two more cult sci-fi films: Moskva-Kassiopeya (Moscow to Cassiopeia) and Otroki vo Vselennoj (Youths in the Universe). Check them out if you feel like it.Oh, and btw, this Sandy Frank's version, Humanoid Woman, is total crap. But you knew that already, didn't you?