In The Shadow Of The Moon
Film Review
“Man on the Moon, The Epic Journey of Apollo 11…. Sponsored by Kellogg’s” - introduction to 1969 CBS coverage of the first moon landing.
There are no shortage of documentaries, films and television shows about the Apollo missions and the journey to the moon, and I’ve seen a lot of them. I therefore wondered what this new documentary film was going to offer, as at this point I really thought I’d seen it all. It turns out that I was very wrong, because somewhere, perhaps in the back of a cupboard at NASA, the producers of this film found footage I’d never seen before. And it’s glorious. With rich, vivid colours, and often perfect camera work, there are shots that truly bring the majesty of space exploration to life.
But more than the footage, this is the real life stories of the astronauts that actually walked on the moon. With contributions from every mission, and with beautiful cinematography, they recount their memories of the highlight of their lives. With no narrating voice, and no interviews with other NASA personnel, these men get the opportunity to speak. Noticeably absent is Neil Armstrong, still living the life of the recluse, but whose colleagues speak very highly of him.
The film does a wonderful job of piecing together the footage and interviews into a narrative, especially of the Apollo 11 mission itself, and my only complaint is that there’s not more of it. It would be nice to see a documentary that took all the mission footage here, plus anything else that’s available, and pieced it all together into a true timeline of events.
When Neil Armstrong stepped out onto the moon for the first time, the whole world was watching. And they were watching together, united in the quest of exploration, and for that brief moment in time it didn’t matter what the colour of your skin was, or what country you were living in, or that the man up there in the space suit was American. He was human. You were human. And that meant you were the same.
This is a truly inspirational, even emotional documentary, which I would encourage everybody to see.
