Haven’t watched a movie for a long time and didn’t regret watching ‘Test Pilota Pirxa‘ from 1978, directed by Marek Piestrak, and based on a short story by Stanislaw Lem. The film feels like a Polish/Estonian/Ukranian answer to ‘2001, A Space Oddysey‘, made 10 years afterwards. Apparently it was the first time futuristic sets were created for a Polish scifi film. In contrast with this, the cinematography is quite rough and fresh, which helps to focus on the psychology of the plot. The main question behind the movie is whether artificial humans can ever replace the real thing, and the ending of the film is wonderfully ambiguous. The robots are called ‘non-linears’ here; an interesting choice, made by Stanislaw Lem in the original story.

A funny detail is that the original music was written by Arvo Pärt, long before he went holy. There is even some weird electronic disco in the film; somehow I can’t believe he made that too..