Monday Movies in Cascais - Science Fiction Series
Being by nature a “forward-looking” genre, dedicated to imagining alternative possibilities and parallel realities, science fiction finds in the visual potential of cinema a natural habitat in which to flourish from its literary roots. In fact, since its earliest days, cinematic science fiction has engaged in a fruitful dialogue with its literary predecessors: considered the first film of the genre, Méliès’s *Le Voyage dans la Lune* drew inspiration not only from Jules Verne but also from H. G. Wells, in a collaboration between filmmakers and writers that continues to this day. Over the years, science fiction has woven various narrative threads teeming with robots, aliens, mutants, spaceships, interstellar and time travel, and futuristic societies (sometimes utopian, but, of course, mostly dystopian).
And almost always as a reflection of the “spirit of the times”: if the fear of nuclear weapons and the “Red Threat” of the Cold War filled the screens with radioactive creatures (ants, tarantulas, or giant lizards like the Japanese Gojira/Godzilla, the “father” of an entire subgenre —kaiju— that delighted the Japanese film industry) and alien invasions (almost invariably anti-communist allegories, though with room for that marvel of ambiguity known as Don Siegel’s *Invasion of the Body Snatchers*, which many see as a scathing critique of McCarthyist conformism), the conspiracy paranoia of the 1970s permeates many essential films such as *Silent Running*, *Soylent Green*, and *THX 1138*, among countless others.
And while the genre has interested the most renowned filmmakers from the very beginning—Lang and *Metropolis*, but also Kubrick (*2001*) and Tarkovsky (*Solaris* and *Stalker*)—at a certain point, a hybridization took place, with science fiction “pollinating” (or is it the other way around?) horror, comedy, the Western, or even samurai films, often with “catastrophic” undertones. Given the current state of the world, there seems to be no shortage of reasons to continue heeding the famous warning: “Watch the skies!”
For more information, click HERE.
Organized by: D. Luís I Foundation, with support from the Cascais City Council
Free admission.
