How do they thaw out the iced-over space station interior? Once itвЂ™s thawed, how do they deal with the water thatвЂ™s accumulating in droplets hung in mid-air? What if one of those droplets shorts some circuits out and threatens to cause a fire? The film does an exceptional job of squeezing the maximum amount of drama from these kinds of moments, and thatвЂ™s where it really shines. Really, вЂSalyut-7вЂ™ works best when itвЂ™s focused on the minute-to-minute of Vladimir and ViktorвЂ™s time in space. And, of course, the two men who go to space have women and families on the ground (one, Viktor, literally with a heavily-pregnant wife), so the film also tries to extract some drama from this well. Fearing espionage and theft of their most advanced space-faring technology, the Soviet propaganda machine kicks into overdrive.ДЇighting the bureaucrats and fear-mongers are a duo of astronauts, one (Vladimir) a caution-to-the-wind flyboy, and the other (Viktor) a by-the-book engineer, and their man in mission control (played by Aleksandr Samoylenko, who looks for all the world like a Russian Robbie Coltrane), whose commitment to keeping his cosmonauts safe far exceeds that of his government. At one point during the rescue mission (which we will come back to in a moment), the US launches its own space shuttle mission, and the Soviet military brass are quick to notice that its cargo bay could perfectly accommodate their space station.

While being thoroughly modern in its production, itвЂ™s good that the film can remind us of the paranoia and fear at the heart of superpower politics in the era. The villains of вЂSalyut-7вЂ™ are the pencil-pushers, the bureaucrats on the ground whoвЂ™d sooner shoot their crowning achievement out of the sky rather than let the big bad USA get their capitalist paws on it, even if it means killing their own cosmonauts.

ItвЂ™s no different from its American counterparts in a great many ways, and the archetype of the heroic rogue, geniuses in their field and likable as all hell, is very much present and accounted for. If nothing else вЂSalyut-7вЂ™ is a film about heroism. ItвЂ™s up to the men on the ground to figure out whatвЂ™s going on and get up there and fix it. During one of Salyut-7вЂ™s periods of unmanned flight, all contact is lost with the station and it begins to spin out of control on a collision course with an uncertain location on Earth. The вЂSalyut-7вЂ™ of the title is a Soviet space station, pioneer of the modular style of space station that would reach its Soviet conclusion with MIR, and later see the worldвЂ™s superpowers flying around in harmonious cooperation with the modern-day International Space Station. Now Russia is again throwing its hat into the ring in the form of вЂњSalyut-7вЂќ, from Moscow director Klim Shipenko.Д«ased on a true story, the film takes us to 1985 вЂ“ the Soviet Union is still alive and kicking, the Cold War bubbles away under the geopolitical landscape, and the Space Race rages on. From high-budget fiction like вЂGravityвЂ™ and вЂArmageddonвЂ™, to the historical dramatizations of films like вЂApollo 13вЂ™ or вЂThe Right StuffвЂ™, the arm patches of our cinematic space heroes have, typically, been flying the Stars and Stripes.

The cultural canon of space exploration movies has long been dominated by one country: the USA.

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