THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL | 31 August

(a) Park Circus

With film plea by Aïsha Noomi Stief & Conrad Dreyer

In the heart of Washington D.C., the alien envoy Klaatu lands in his spaceship. Accompanied by a giant robot whose destructive capabilities are beyond imagination, he seeks to make contact with humanity and urges them to finally live together in peace. If this does not happen, an unimaginable catastrophe threatens the Earth.

“A science fiction classic without any technical innovations, but with a clear message that carried considerable weight at the time of the ‘Cold War’ and the Korean Crisis.” Lexikon des Internationalen Films

“The reputation of *The Day the Earth Stood Still* has grown over the years … No one who saw it in 1951 has forgotten it, and it is still the film one watches again with a mixture of nostalgia and dread.” John Clute, 1995

The film is a clear commentary on the Cold War and Western paranoia about communism and Soviet agents. For instance, during a dinner conversation in the film, a woman says she does not believe that Klaatu comes from Mars, but from Earth. In other words, she thinks he is simply a Russian spy. Whilst the militarised forces in the film are clearly portrayed as a threat, science, by contrast, appears as a bastion of reason, as representatives of all nations gather around the spaceship during the conference shown in the film. Furthermore, the aliens’ highly advanced technology is impervious to armed force; it is superior to it. This reflects the great trust in science that was much more pronounced in the 1950s. This correlates with the belief in progress that prevailed at the time the film was made: Although Klaatu regards nuclear weapons in conjunction with interstellar space travel as the decisive threat, he emphasises in the scene where he stands with Bobby in front of the spaceship that nuclear power can also be used for peaceful purposes and not just for bombs. (Source: Wikipedia)