Everyone knows the moon-landing was faked for the television cameras, but nobody had quite so much evidence before actor/director Matt Johnson uncovered this astounding behind-the-scenes footage, starring himself.
This is what great film festivals… are all about – a glimpse of top-notch emerging talent that very well may take over Hollywood in the decade or two to come.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2016
Operation Avalanche 2016
Let’s be honest: we’re all a bit over the faux documentary sub-genre. So let’s hear it for Canadian Matt Johnson with his devilishly clever cinephile meta-take on the Apollo Moon landing. It’s 1967, the height of the cold war, and the CIA suspects a Russian mole is inside NASA sabotaging the programme. Two chipper young agents, disguised as filmmakers capturing NASA’s race to the moon, are sent to uncover the mole. They uncover something more shocking than any Russian spy. Suddenly the agents are in way over their heads as they scramble to help save the USA’s credibility. Before too long guns start blazing alongside incredible one-shot car chases, as the influence of Stanley Kubrick may or may not come into this high-concept paranoid thriller.
The major achievement in this at times very funny quasi-fictional-doco is the technically impressive and seamless integration of all the kinds of footage used, and the ballsy fact that Johnson and co actually fooled NASA in a cunning meta-squared move. They got into the real NASA by saying they were filming for a student film about the making of a making of a making… okay my head hurts now… just come and see this very smart film. — AT