David Sington‘s “In the Shadow of the Moon” is an awe inspiring film about an unbelievable accomplishment. The gorgeously shot documentary use a a lot of unseen NASA footage, including one particularly awesome shot of a rocket’s fiery eruption and climb into the atmosphere that released the Apollo astronauts from Earth’s gravity towards their first steps on another celestial body. The film is a very positive, pro accomplishment look that offers detailed testimony from the Apollo astronauts and the only men to visit another world. It would be easy to see the film as a simply nationalistic praise for American technological might were it not for the the stoicism of Neil Armstrong and his eloquently words, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” or the humble awe that the other astronauts convey of their unearthly experience.
“In The Shadow of the Moon” doesn’t shy from commenting on the environmental impact that we have made on our fragile planet and also offers a few parallels that can be drawn between American now and American than. One particularly ironic shot is of a modest sign that NASA displays after landing on the moon that simply states, “Task Accomplished.” It is obviously reminiscent of a recent display of misguided bravado that makes one yearn for the 1969 America where racial and social lines were being redrawn, people weren’t afraid to speak out against an unjust war, and men dared to dream of the impossible.