If the Apollo astronauts had flown to the moon via Paris in paper spaceships, this is how it might have looked. Walerian Borowczyk’s cut-out 12 minute short co-directed by Chris Marker almost beat the Americans to the moon by a decade. Instead, our ingenious protagonist’s mission is interrupted by the sight of a scantily-dressed young woman and a collision with a larger spaceship.
If you think we’ve given the ending away, don’t worry, the narrative isn’t important. What matters is the animation style, combining a standard cartoon style with paper cut-outs and occasional live-action. A decade later, this aesthetic would be at the heart of Terry Gilliam’s animations on Monty Python’s Flying Circus. See Les Astronautes here.
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