Aniara

_**The poem is a masterpiece of esoteric science-fiction literature; and this is an unexpectedly impressive adaptation with a chilling dénouement**_ >_We ride in our sarcophagus in silence,_ >_no longer offering the planet violence_ >_or spreading deathly quiet on our kind._ >_Here we can question freely, true_ >_while the vessel_ Aniara_, gone askew_ >_in bleak tracts of space, leaves vile time behind._ - Harry Martinson; _Aniara: en revy om människan i tid och rum_ [trans. _Aniara: fragments of time and space_] (1956); Canto 25 >_How tremendous outer space is,_ >_h__ow huge its mystery,_…

With Earth now just about uninhabitable, the “Aniara” - a vast liner-like spacecraft - is heading to Mars when it suffers a technical malfunction at the hands of some space junk. It can only survive if it jettisons all it’s fuel and so is now rendered incapable of propulsion. The captain “Chefone” (Arvin Kananian) has to announce to the passengers that instead of three weeks, it might take them at least two years to get there and that will only be if they can slingshot around something and gain momentum. Initially the travellers are happy enough with their twenty-one restaurants, swimming…