A Russian street dog named Laika was the first living creature to orbit Earth. This is so well known a fact as to scarcely need stating 鈥� but in becoming trivia, the ambition and brutality of the Soviet experiment she was part of in November 1957 has been lost. Space Dogs, a documentary with a limited streaming release in the UK this month, attempts to expand our perspective to include a dog鈥檚-eye view.
Laika died shortly after launch, her body circling the Earth in Sputnik 2 鈥渓ike some cosmic flotsam鈥�, says actor Aleksei Serebryako, who contributes Space Dogs鈥� occasional narration in Russian. The satellite incinerated on re-entering the atmosphere in April 1958, though according to local legend Laika鈥檚 ghost returned to Earth.
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Space Dogs combines archive material from the Soviet era with footage of modern-day strays in Moscow to invoke what Laika鈥檚 life might have been like before she was forcibly recruited into the space race. Directed by Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter, the documentary is light on narrative and exposition, instead presenting, sometimes whimsically, the street dogs as Laika鈥檚 descendants, dreaming of the space exploration that was her doom.
The camera quietly accompanies the dogs as they chew parked cars, forge alliances, see off threats and otherwise roam the city with apparent purpose. This dream-like atmosphere is punctured by sudden bursts of high energy and aggression, true to the life of a stray.
The film mirrors this with footage of the experiments on the space dogs that came after Laika, in part as a result of her perceived 鈥渟uccess鈥�. Indeed, the Soviet Union publicly maintained she was alive for several days after her flight and died painlessly as planned. did new research establish that she perished just hours after launch.
Peter and Kremser sought to show the 鈥渂itterness鈥� in the relationship between dogs and humans. The film鈥檚 canine view does cast a new light on these scenes from the lab, showing dogs strapped into a centrifuge or draped in wires, visibly trembling. But Space Dogs is essayistic in scope to the point of obscuring facts, such as in its assertion that 鈥渁fter weeks in stifling darkness, only a few dogs returned to Earth alive鈥�.
In attempting to create an exhaustive list of orbital and suborbital flights of the Soviet space dog programme, Animals in Space authors Colin Burgess and Chris Dubbs were thwarted by incomplete and inconsistent record-keeping. was that dogs were launched into space 71 times from 1951 to 1966 and there were 17 deaths.
Of the dozens of dogs the USSR sent into space, only Laika鈥檚 death was a certainty. The first to orbit the Earth and return alive were Strelka and Belka in 1960, with Strelka鈥檚 puppies later presented as proof that it was possible for living beings to safely survive space. It was certainly a reductive public relations ploy 鈥� but the presentation in Space Dogs of Strelka鈥檚 mating as a sinister plot to produce the 鈥渇irst cosmic children鈥� demonstrates the film-makers鈥� readiness to deploy their creative licence.
If their aim was to show how the space dogs were mistreated, or reveal Russia鈥檚 embrace of Laika as a self-serving source of national pride, more structure and facts would have been effective. Instead, Space Dogs adds to the mythology 鈥� though, of the reductive and the romantic interpretations of Laika鈥檚 story, it may come the closest of any to offering a canine perspective.
Space Dogs is available to stream in the UK on Mubi.com for one month from 10 September. The is also holding a virtual screening on Tuesday 15 September at 6pm
