Inquest of Pilot Pirx

Inquest of Pilot Pirx (Polish: Test pilota Pirxa, Russian: Дознание пилота Пиркса, romanized: Doznaniye pilota Pirksa, Estonian: Navigaator Pirx) is a joint Polish-Soviet 1979 film directed by Marek Piestrak. It is based on the short story "The Inquest" by Stanisław Lem from his 1968 short story collection Opowieści o pilocie Pirxie (Tales of Pirx the Pilot; the story was translated into English in the second part, More Tales of Pirx the Pilot).[3] It was adapted for film by Vladimir Valutsky. It is a joint production by Zespoly Filmowe, and Tallinnfilm. Some of the studio-based filming was done at the Dovzhenko Film Studios.

Test pilota Pirxa
Film poster
Directed byMarek Piestrak
Written byVladimir Valutsky
Stanisław Lem (story)
StarringAleksandr Kaidanovsky
CinematographyJanusz Pawlowski
Music byArvo Pärt
Eugeniusz Rudnik[1]
Production
companies
Release date
  • 1979 (1979)
Running time
104 minutes[2]
CountriesPoland
Soviet Union

Plot summary

Spaceship pilot Pirx is hired for a mission to test probes to be placed in the Cassini Division, a gap between rings of Saturn, while the real secret goal was to evaluate some nonlinears (androids with "nonlinear" characteristics) for use as crew members on future space flights. The mission meets with a near disaster and the human crew are almost killed.

Upon returning to Earth there is an inquest to determine if Pirx was responsible for the accident. Pirx recounts the events and in the end it is established that one of the robots caused the malfunction of a probe and attempted to pass through the Division to launch the probe manually, an attempt which would kill the human crew members and prove the superiority of nonlinears over humans.[4]

Cast
  • Sergei Desnitsky as Commandor Pirx
  • Aleksandr Kaidanovsky as Tom Nowak, neurologist and cyberneticist
  • Vladimir Ivashov as Harry Brown, 2nd Pilot
  • Tõnu Saar as Kurt Weber, nucleonicist engineer
  • Igor Przegrodzki as McGuirr
  • Boleslaw Abart as Jan Otis, electronicist
  • Janusz Bylczynski as head judge
  • Mieczysław Janowski as Mitchell
  • Jerzy Kaliszewski as Dr. Kristoff
  • Zbigniew Lesien as John Calder, 1st Pilot
  • Ferdynand Matysik as Green, the UNESCO Director

Discussion

In this tale Lem puts forth the idea that what is perceived a human weakness is in fact an advantage over a perfect machine. Pirx defeats the robot because a human can hesitate, make wrong decisions, have doubts, but a robot cannot.[5][4]

Polish film critic Krzysztof Loska thinks that the film adaptation unduly shifted Lem's original focus on the definition of humanity to the trope of robot rebellion.[5]

Reception

Inquest of Pilot Pirx was awarded the "Golden Asteroid" Big Prize at the International Cinema Festival at Trieste 1979.[4]

References
  1. "Program/Film/ THE PILOT PIRX TEST DIR. Marek Piestrak"
  2. Inquest of Pilot Pirx at IMDb
  3. Marek Piestrak: widzowie nie zawiedli, interview by DAREK KUŹMA
  4. Eva Näripea, Transnational Spaces of Science Fiction: An Estonian-Polish coproduction The Test of Pilot Pirx (Test pilota Pirxa / Navigaator Pirx, 1978), Kinokultura, 2010
  5. Krzysztof Loska, "Lem on Film". In: Swirski, P. (2008). The Art and Science of Stanislaw Lem. McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 161. ISBN 9780773575073. Retrieved 2015-04-04.
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