EIFF 2013: Lunarcy! Review

Director: Simon Ennis.

Starring: Christopher Carson, Alan Bean, Peter Kokh, Dennis Hope,

Running Time: 80 minutes.

Synopsis: LUNARCY! follows a group of people who have devoted their lives to the Moon – and won’t stop until they live there.

“Why did dinosaurs become extinct? Because they didn’t have a space project” – welcome to Simon Ennis’ LUNARCY! Forty years after the last man stepped on the Moon, Earth’s fascination with the big old chunk of space rock is as pertinent as ever. With over two hundred properties sold on the Moon per day by ‘owner’, Dennis Hope, LUNARCY! focuses on a group of people who believe we could be up there in five years with the right funding.

At the centre of both colonisation hopes and documentary is Christopher Carson. Young, enthusiastic and the owner of a voice that demands to be listened to, Carson takes his Luna Project across the country in the hope of finding someone willing to take a financial risk. The son of parents who felt shortchanged by the promise of Moon vacations in the 1960s, Chris appears to shoulder the burden of lunar relocation. A self-proclaimed social pariah, Chris may be an easy target, but his passion is so contagious that you’ll long for more time with him.

Though Carson surely deserves his own film, he is not the only lunar acolyte showcased. From the writer of the Moon Mines Manifesto (‘MMM’, for short) to a man exposing the fornicating man bat myth from the 1800s, LUNARCY! is full of memorable faces. Carson and co. may long to live on the Moon, but astronaut Alan Bean found himself walking across it in 1969. Retiring from NASA in 1981, the fourth man on the Moon now paints exquisite representations of his time in space, talking us through his art with infectious sincerity.

Never poking fun at its subjects, LUNARCY! remains focused on aspiration and the beauty of hope. There may be something quite sad about watching Chris Carson attempt to win people over in Times Square, but a moment in a room full of high school students will leave you giddy with happiness. Cool, contemporary and laden with pop culture interludes, LUNARCY!’s style is everything its subjects are not. With fast paced text relaying key quotes and facts over a perky, percussive backdrop, imagine Wes Anderson at the helm of a documentary and you’re halfway there.

The notion of living on the Moon provides welcome solace to this group of people who don’t feel they belong in a place with a stronger gravitational pull. Peppy, funny and often surprisingly heartfelt, Ennis’ stylistic choices have LUNARCY! screaming for multiple rewatches. A documentary that is as much ahead of the pack as the people it hones in on, this is essential viewing for anyone who has ever glanced at the night sky with even the slightest curiosity.