Europa Report (October 19th and 20th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[EUROPA REPORT screens Saturday October 19th at 9:55 pm and Sunday October 20th at 8:15 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]


Review by Bob Ignizio

A privately funded space mission sends six astronauts to Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter in EUROPA REPORT. The film is uses a mockumentary/found footage approach to tell the story of what happened. Dr. Unger (Embeth Davidtz), the CEO of the company that funded the mission, serves to narrate and put the footage into context with another scientist (Dan Fogler) occasionally chiming in with tidbits of information. Most of what we see, however, is the footage shot by the various cameras on board the spacecraft and attached to the space suits of the crew. As the tale unfolds in a not entirely linear fashion, the film does a fine job at conveying the romance, the terror, and the boredom of space travel, and most importantly, the reasons why the incredible risks are worth it.