Opération lune (2002) (TV)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

William Karel

Release Date:

16 October 2002 (France)

Genre:

Drama | Comedy | Documentary

Plot Keywords:

Moon Landing | Mockumentary | Mock Documentary | Apollo 11

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Stanley Kubrick	...	Himself (archive footage)
Richard Nixon	...	Himself (archive footage)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Buzz Aldrin	...	Himself
Loïs Aldrin	...	Herself
Tad Brown	...	David Bowman
Lawrence Eagleburger	...	Himself
Farouk Elbaz	...	Himself
Alexander Haig	...	Himself
Jan Harlan	...	Himself
Richard Helms	...	Himself
Jeffrey Hoffman	...	Himself
Bernard Kirschoff	...	Dimitri Muffley
Henry Kissinger	...	Himself
Christiane Kubrick	...	Herself
Barbara Rogers	...	Eve Kendall
John Rogers	...	Ambrose Chapel
Donald Rumsfeld	...	Himself
Jacquelyn Toman	...	Maria Vargas
Vernon Walters	...	Himself
David Winger	...	Jack Torrance

Also Known As:

Dark Side of the Moon (Australia) (International: English title)

Runtime:

52 min

Country:

France

Language:

French | English

Color:

Color

Company:

Arte France

Trivia:

The origin of the fictitious characters' names: - Jack Torrance - from The Shining (1980) - David Bowman - from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - Dimitri Muffley - from Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) (a combination of the names of the two presidents) - Eve Kendall - from North by Northwest (1959) - Marla Vargas - from The Barefoot Contessa (1954) - Ambrose Chapel - centre of the spies' activity in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) - W.A. Koenigsberg - a play on Woody Allen's (W.A.) real name, Allen Stuart Koenigsberg. George Kaplan - from North by Northwest (1959)

Movie Connections:

References The Shining (1980)

Why perpetuate the tragedy??

I only saw a little bit of this (finding it highly suspect and very unconvincing), but my mother watched it all and *believed* in it, until I showed her the user comments here.

I think the end, and the program as a whole, does too little to reveal that it's a hoax. A lot of people today tragically believe that there was no moon landing, and this program is just making more of those people. Unless you are very intelligent and know a lot about the subject, and remember the names of the characters from the various movies referenced, it is very easy to be thoroughly fooled by this program.

To do such a "documentary" is only funny if you think it's funny that a lot of people don't believe in the moon landing. Personally, I think it's tragic and horrible, and I think it's irresponsible to perpetuate the idea in any way.

As I have not seen more than a few minutes of this (and don't intend to), I won't rate it, but I will say that I find it problematic. Most people are idiots. They will believe this sort of thing. That's not a good idea. People should be educated, not deceived, even if the purpose is satire. The film is cleverly done and all, but I seriously worry that it does *a lot* more harm than good.