Review of On the Comet

For some reason, I've watched this movie more times than any other! I had an English VHS that ran LP and it didn't matter. This movie is just so much fun. Zeman seems to have an endless bag of tricks that fit the story to a T.

It's a perfect sci-fantasy flick in just about every way done in Zeman's immersive imaginative way. A young "foreign legion" officer finds himself in a sea of conflicts as he tries to help the "girl of his dreams". All the while the world is facing cataclysm from a "close approaching" comet. Zeman is the master of what I would call, "impressionistic cinema" where surrealism adds immense detail to the story somehow.

The score is lavish and simple at the same time and pulls you in with it's odd orchestral intensity and has it's own surrealism. The action is packed with visual finesse. The actors are comical in the reactions to their situations and there lays a wealth of social commentary. Like the young officer's pointing out to his "lady in distress" a strange creature making evolutionary transformations before his eyes, only in the reverse order... Lot's of great "sight gags".

I've lost my VHS copy... too bad!