Next week marks the 54th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, which makes it a great time to catch up with Apollo 10½. Richard Linklater’s semi-autobiographical animation invites us to experience growing up in the 1960’s, with humankind on the verge of landing on the moon. It’s part memoir, part fantasy and a complete and absolute joy to watch.
The year is 1969 and we are introduced to 10-year-old Stan (played by Milo Coy and later by Jack Black) at his school in Houston, Texas. During break, Stan is approached by two men from Nasa, Krantz (Zachary Levi) and Bostick (Glen Powell), who request his assistance with a secret mission. Due to a miscalculation, the lunar module has been built too small to accommodate the astronauts and Nasa now needs a kid-sized pilot to blast into space and deposit the lunar lander on the surface of the moon.
Stan jumps at the chance and he undertakes a rigorous training regimen before secretly becoming the first person to set foot on the moon. Or does he?
Suburban Texas in the 1960s is a time and place where the quest to put humanity on the moon was part of daily life: seemingly everyone’s dad worked for Nasa; local businesses and television were obsessed with the Space Race. We see, at a local level, the excitement and anticipation of an event that captured the global imagination.
Linklater’s skill as a storyteller is never more evident than when drawing us into stories like Apollo 10½ where, when you think about it, not much really happens. But his movies about people and relationships are as absorbing and compelling as any intricately plotted blockbuster. Apollo 10½ plays to all of his strengths – from the character-driven stories refined in Boy and the Before Sunrise series, to the immersive nostalgia of Dazed and Confused, via the off-kilter animation of A Scanner Darkly and Waking Life – all converging in this coming-of-age fantasy.
Fact and fiction carry equal weight in Apollo 10½ and events are recounted warmly and anecdotally, coloured by the passage of time. Black’s retrospective narration as adult Stan lends the proceedings a comforting air that brings to mind The Wonder Years or Rob Reiner’s feelgood classic Stand By Me.
This blending of historical fact and rose-tinted memory is emphasised further via the use of newsreels, commercials and other footage from the time period. Iconic scenes from 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Sound Of Music and The Wizard Of Oz are filtered through the distinctive animation process, to create an aesthetic that is strikingly unique and familiar.
Apollo 10½ is partly rotoscoped, a process whereby live-action footage is traced over by animators. It’s a common technique seen in the work of animation greats everywhere, from Walt Disney to Ralph Bakshi, but it was also the reason the Academy declined to consider it for the best animation Oscar (a decision later reversed after an outpouring of support for the technique and film).
The fluid motion of rotoscoping, which leaves the actors recognisable while making them cartoonish, gives Apollo 10½ an Uncanny Valley quality. But this sense of unreality means Stan can segue from memory to fantasy at will, and Linklater can blend well-documented history with a personal, nostalgic appreciation for the optimism of 1960s America he remembers from childhood. The end result is out of this world.
