Brilliantly conceptualized, Last Flight packs a long punch in its short-film format. It combines both vision and a closely observed attention to detail in its clearly realized Martian environment, as well as in its particular observations about humanity. The colour is in glorious martial red, reflecting a scorched earth policy of nuclear warfare occurring simultaneously on planet Earth. The stranded actress alone and alienated on the desert of Mars, plays her part with quiet dignity. She convinces us to care about her existential yet tragically real plight, although all we can see is her face through her helmet's visor and the communication of her spacesuit-clumsy body language. The fine cinematography transforms the hellish, awesome beauty of the Martian landscape into the other major player in the story. The music engenders an atmosphere and tension that supports Damon Keen's creative dialectic reverberating throughout, between human nature and science. Science poses a Mephistophelean choice to human aspiration - our scientific expertise can land us on Mars and yet can also kill off our earthly environment and blow up the home planet. Set in 2038, humanity has made its deal with the devil. Our science has made possible this amazing flight to Mars, opening the secrets of the universe for humanity. Yet the movie actualizes an apocalyptic vision that one lone astronaut stumbles through. She is in a world with no water and no air - so far distant from our green and blue planet. Her earthly seeds need water and air. She plants them in the dry red volcanic rocks as a determined gesture of hope in these magic seeds of life. The ending is beautiful and unexpectedly affecting. Her metaphysical flight becomes a moving homage paid to Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 Space Odyssey. As her spirit soars into the blue skies we take flight too - into the aspirations of new realms of consciousness that science does offer humanity.
