As (Un)Seen from Space: Soviet Collapse and the Unwatchable in Andrei Ujică's Out of the Present

Abstract

abstract: Andrei Ujică's 1995 documentary Out of the Present tells the story of Sergei Krikalev, the last Soviet cosmonaut, who was stranded aboard the Mir space station from May 18, 1991, to March 25, 1992. He was thus one of two former Soviet citizens to watch the collapse of the USSR from space. Through a comparison of Out of the Present with Theo Anthony's 2021 documentary All Light, Everywhere , this article examines the conditions, processes, and contradictions of recording and observing the present from a cosmic perspective. This analysis is performed through the critical frameworks of the unwatchable, which explore the limits of visibility in visual media. My interpretation of Out of the Present contributes to the discourse on the unwatchable by introducing the problem of the political subject and the way in which the political determining of the eye governs the field of watchability.