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Film (1970; vt The Big Mess). Kairos Film. Produced and directed by Alexander Kluge. Written by Kluge, Wolfgang Mai. Cast includes Silvia Forsthofer, Siegfried Graue, Vincenz Starr and Maria Sterr. 86 minutes. Black and white and colour.
This West German comedy is by a director – a leading light of the German New Wave – whose apprenticeship was with Fritz Lang. It is an amusing Dystopia set in 2034 CE, when the Galaxy has been opened up to entrepreneurs, and monopoly capitalism – in this case the Suez Canal Company – is rampant. Der Grosse Verhau focuses on two not especially bright astronauts caught in the muddle of the system, who smuggle, wreck Spaceships for scrap or do deals with insurance companies. The imagery of working stiffs in ramshackle spacecraft points forward to Alien (1979). [PN]
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Entry from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction edited by John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls and Graham Sleight.
Accessed 14:38 pm on 16 April 2024.
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