The Red Stuff

In THE RED STUFF - the title is an allusion to “the right stuff” -, Leo de Boer follows a number of retired Russian cosmonauts. They all witnessed the birth of space travel, but often without exactly knowing what they got themselves into. After the launch of the first satellite in 1957 and of the dog Laika, it was Yuri Gagarin’s turn to fly into the cosmos as the first man ever on 12 April 1961. The endeavour was preceded by everything but an elaborate training, as is clear from the former cosmonauts’ stories. If something went wrong during the landing back on earth, and this happened quite often, it was simply swept under the already bulging carpet, just as everything else was shrouded in the utmost secrecy. The documentary is interlarded with archive footage of launchings and promotional pictures. In spite of, or perhaps because of the astronauts’ mitigating stories, the heroism is sustained.