Inquest of Pilot Pirx
| Test pilota Pirxa | |
|---|---|
Zespoly Filmowe Tallinnfilm | |
Release date |
|
Running time | 104 minutes[2] |
| Countries | Poland Soviet Union |
Inquest of Pilot Pirx (
Plot summary
Upon returning to Earth there is an inquest to determine if Pirx was responsible for the accident. Pirx recounts the events and in the end it is established that one of the robots caused the malfunction of a probe and attempted to pass through the Division to launch the probe manually, an attempt which would kill the human crew members and prove the superiority of nonlinears over humans.[4]
Cast
- Sergei Desnitsky as Commandor Pirx
- Aleksandr Kaidanovskyas Tom Nowak, neurologist and cyberneticist
- Vladimir Ivashov as Harry Brown, 2nd Pilot
- Tõnu Saar as Kurt Weber, nucleonicist engineer
- Igor Przegrodzki as McGuirr
- Boleslaw Abart as Jan Otis, electronicist
- Janusz Bylczynski as head judge
- Mieczysław Janowski as Mitchell
- Jerzy Kaliszewski as Dr. Kristoff
- Zbigniew Lesien as John Calder, 1st Pilot
- Ferdynand Matysik as Green, the UNESCO Director
Discussion
In this tale Lem puts forth the idea that what is perceived a human weakness is in fact an advantage over a perfect machine. Pirx defeats the robot because a human can hesitate, make wrong decisions, have doubts, but a robot cannot.[5][4]
Polish film critic Krzysztof Loska thinks that the film adaptation unduly shifted Lem's original focus on the definition of humanity to the trope of
Jerzy Jarzębski cites the robot pilot among the examples of Lem's robots who got destroyed by an infusion of humanness into them (see "Stanisław Lem and robots" for more on this issue): the robot pilot, otherwise a perfect machine, acquires a truly humane pride and vanity, and attempts to make an "optimal" decision to show its superiority over humans.[6]
Reception
Inquest of Pilot Pirx was awarded the "Golden Asteroid" Big Prize at the International Cinema Festival at Trieste 1979.[4]
References
- ^ "Program/Film/ THE PILOT PIRX TEST DIR. Marek Piestrak"
- IMDb
- ^ Marek Piestrak: widzowie nie zawiedli, interview by DAREK KUŹMA
- ^ a b c Eva Näripea, Transnational Spaces of Science Fiction: An Estonian-Polish coproduction The Test of Pilot Pirx (Test pilota Pirxa / Navigaator Pirx, 1978), Kinokultura, 2010
- ^ ISBN 9780773575073. Retrieved 2015-04-04.
- ^ Jerzy Jarzębski, PIRX I SEKRETY CZŁOWIECZEŃSTWA, an afterword to Opowieści o pilocie Pirxie
External links
- Inquest of Pilot Pirx at IMDb
