It sometimes seems to be a rule of modern life that the extraordinary of yesterday is the commonplace of today, but there are some exceptions: the moon landings, for example, unrepeated since the early 1970s, still stand out as a tribute to human ingenuity, audacity and vanity. Watching this documentary consisting of film from the actual missions, coupled with testimony from many of the astronauts who took part (though the reclusive Neil Armstrong does not participate), the overwhelming feeling is simply "did we really do that?" (the tendency of people to use the word "we" when describing the undertaking, incidentally, does not pass uncommented on by the astronauts themselves). The footage is amazing, but it's also interesting to note how similar the astronauts appear to be: the men selected for having "the right stuff" are all insightful, eloquent, a little square (even Buzz Aldrin, whose reputation is for being somewhat wacky) and white; it's hard to believe that an Apollo crew assembled today would be quite so uniform in composition. Nonetheless, it's easy to warm to them, men who have done something that none of us born later have ever done, something perhaps that no man will do again: they walked upon the moon, and the very idea still takes your breath away.
Review of In the Shadow of the Moon
