For his documentary Out Of The Present, Russian filmmaker Andrei Ujica supplied the inhabitants of space station Mir with a 35mm camera and sundry video equipment, and hired Vadim Yusov (cinematographer for Andrei Tarkovsky's classic science-fiction chiller Solaris) to orchestrate the shooting from mission control. The film commenced production in 1991, with the intention of capturing the way wide-eyed wonder and soul-deadening drudgery can coexist in outer space. Then a different story asserted itself. In May 1991, cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev boarded Mir, was greeted with the traditional offering of bread and salt, and made the official broadcast back to his homeland in front of a red flag sporting a hammer and sickle. By the time Krikalev returned to Earth in March 1992, the Soviet flag was packed away, replaced by a makeshift flag of the new Russian republic that had been established in his absence. So, in between Out Of The Present's lyrical views of Earth from orbit and the deadpan absurdity of the cosmonauts' daily routine—dodging the rusty spare parts that float by in the station, sipping floating Coca-Cola particles—Ujica inserts footage of the riots and celebrations in the streets of Moscow upon the news of Mikhail Gorbachev's ouster. Since the film was made primarily for a Russian audience that presumably recalls its political turmoil in depth, Ujica shows images of the revolution without explaining their relevance, a drag for those who can't remember the details of a decade ago. He also adheres more to his original vision than might be expected, which means Out Of The Present settles into a stretch of hypnotic space ballet just when the fires down below burn brightest. But Ujica's lengthy takes of slowly rotating landscapes allow him to comment on the contrast between the rapid changes at ground level and the slow changes above. He backs up his point with shots of the citizens of a volatile Moscow ignoring the fracas as they dodge tanks on their way to the office. In the end, Ujica tells the story that he always meant to tell, about how the amazing things happening outside the window can go largely unnoticed because of the work to be done inside.