by John Tillyard, Contributing Writer
Covering what was supposed to be man’s third trip to the moon, Apollo 13: Survival, follows astronauts Fred Haise, Jim Lovell, and Jack Swigert, who find themselves in a life-or-death situation when an explosion causes damage to the spacecraft’s fuel cells. The Houston NASA team must now think about how to get the three men home safely before running out of oxygen.
This documentary unearths unseen footage from the actual mission. It combines this with still photos and voiceovers from people interviewed about the events of more than 50 years ago. There is no narrator, which is a plus in my book. Narration should never be needed in a visual medium; if you need a separate voice explaining the events and situation on screen, you’ve failed as a storyteller. I also feel it overplays the drama of the events too much.
People recalling the events and their feelings or emotions at the time is the closest thing to narration in Survival. The interviewees include the astronauts themselves remembering being out in the void of space, the NASA team on the ground who worked to get them home safely, and family members who waited with bated breath, praying they would see their loved ones again. This means every aspect of the mission’s events is covered, and every detail is documented concisely.
The interviews are only voiceovers, which also works to maintain a compelling nature to the chronicling of events, as it means they can be shown on screen simultaneously. Practically all footage and images used are from the time of the mission, and it’s all told in chronological order, so you can easily cast your mind back to 1970 and imagine you are there. Even though I knew how things worked out, I felt tension and fear for the mission during many parts of it.
Lovell and his wife, Marilyn, are the main emotional focus, with a decent amount of information about Lovell’s life leading up to the mission and his family’s feelings as events unfold. Similarly, there is a sufficient amount of focus on the attention the mission received from the world’s media and the general public’s unanimous hope that the crew would come home safely. There is a humbling and uplifting feeling to the idea that so many people would put so much effort, thought and concern into saving the lives of three people, and practically the entire world would be praying for them to be okay.
The footage from the time is also a fascinating time capsule of how the world’s media covered the ongoing crisis, and it is a window into television in the early ‘70s. This is coupled with footage from onboard the shuttle, which gives us an idea of what it’s like to be inside a small module in the middle of outer space. As good as Ron Howard’s Apollo 13 is, it never captures the claustrophobic feeling of being inside the ship while out in space, or the ongoing suspense as the crisis develops. Both are captured here brilliantly. It’s remarkable how easy it is to follow how the events unfolded. Except for a few reenactments and computer diagrams of the ship and its flight path, everything seen on screen was captured back in 1970. While on the subject of Apollo 13, the famous line by Tom Hanks is a slight misquote; in reality, Lovell reported to Houston, “We’ve had a problem,” and the actual quote is heard in the opening sequence here.
Survival‘s musical score does an incredible job of capturing the mood in many different moments during the mission. The existing feeling of the launch, the ominous feeling when things go wrong, and the massive tension when the ship reenters the earth’s atmosphere. It helps convey that you are watching a narrative with a deliberately structured arc and purposefully contrived emotional turns, rather than documentation of an actual event.
The details the doc goes into in explaining the various issues with oxygen, heat, and the limited time they had to think of a solution make it easy to understand the desperation of the crew’s situation, and how up in the air it was if they were going to survive. The amount of improvisation and quick thinking the NASA team has to do is fascinating. It helps you respect their work to get the astronauts home.
All in all, this documentary doesn’t do much wrong. There is a much larger focus on Lovell than the other two astronauts. Still, every other aspect of the mission is given much focus and explanation, using archive footage, modern-day interviews, and ‘70s style graphics showing the ship’s journey. Music paces the mood perfectly, and the balance of focus on different aspects of the mission keeps anything from dragging too much. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a documentary explain such complex issues so concisely and clearly before, or in a way that eliminated any confusion about what had gone wrong, why it had happened, and what it meant for the mission. Houston, we have, or should I say, we’ve had an excellent documentary.
Rating: Loved It
Apollo 13: Survival is currently streaming on Netflix
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