Review of For All Mankind (1989) by Andrejs P — 18 Jul 2009

I'm writing this on July 19th, 2009 - the day before the fortieth anniversary of man stepping on the moon. Having not been born until 1988, I don't have the pleasure of having memories of that significant day. But, with "For All Mankind", the 1989 documentary by Al Reinert, the sense of spectacle is illustrated beautifully in a film that taps into the collective unconscious of humanities' curiosity of the vastness of space.

To appreciate Reinert's documentary, you must know what it took to make the film. Reinert was given access to over six million feet of film (well over one thousand miles) by NASA and edited it down to a sleek eighty minute theatrical release. In it, he combines the footage of the twelve Apollo missions, and even some footage on board Apollo 13 and from the Gemini spacecraft. "For All Mankind" differs from the rest of the films about the lunar missions in that it's not a historical record, but rather a sort of metaphysical meditation on Earth and the infinite universe.

We aren't given name tags to clue us in on who is speaking or from which mission the footage we're seeing is from. It doesn't paint a portrait of any astronauts in particular, but rather the collective "astronaut". By being so vague, it makes it all the easier to place ourselves in their space helmets and explore right along with them.

The best thing about the film is how much it embraces the trivialities of space travel. We see numerous shots of the astronauts playing with gravity, and discussing the methods they used to both eat and make waste. And, most memorably, we get plenty of footage of the men simply playing on the moon. They jump around recklessly, toppling over onto their faces, and narrate with the enthusiasm of a child at Chuck E Cheese.

The breathing room in the film is phenomenal. This footage is some of the most spectacular ever filmed, and so Reinert makes sure he gives us enough to digest every last moment. Ample time is given to the launch, the journey, and the moon landing, and, in a wise decision, he chooses to leave off the trip back. The images are accompanied with a beautiful score that creates an atmosphere unlike anything you've ever seen.

While not being the most historically accurate recollection of the Apollo missions, "For All Mankind" is extraordinarily successful in capturing the journey. It's a wonderful film, up there with the best documentaries i've ever seen, and a film I could easily see myself revisiting for the rest of my life. It's a timeless treasure.