Film

There’s something of the stirring, well-polished television film to this documentary that explores the moon landings of the Apollo space programme between 1968 and 1972 – but don’t let that stop you from wondering at the film’s incredible images of space exploration that still manage to send a shiver up the spine four decades later. David Sington more than makes up for the straightforward nature of his film with the quality of its interviews and plenitude of staggering archive footage, beginning with a sequence of failed rocket launches that immediately remind you of the overarching fragility and danger of those early missions. Neil Armstrong, famously reclusive, is absent, but Buzz Aldrin and, especially, Mike Collins are witty and wise presences, as are most of the talking heads – each Apollo mission is represented – who seem far from their dotage as they approach their eighties.

‘It was beautiful in its simplicity,’ says Collins of JFK’s stated desire to send a man to the moon by the end of the 1960s. ‘Do what? Moon. When? End of decade.’ Collins is a joy to behold, coming across, like all his colleagues, as men whose experiences simply must be shared.

The film is light on politics and social context and heavy on drama and patriotism: human adventure and accomplishment are its interests, and the threat to Apollo 13 emerges as an episode of high tension. Audiences should be amazed at the technological limitations of the Apollo missions, which appear to have been backed by little more than the memory and power of an iPod. It’s refreshing, too, to watch a film which permits a swell of pride for a true American story.