There’s a defiant ambition in Vimukthi Jayasundara’s Spying Stars that manifests in each of its carefully polished scenes. From its first frame of an imposing yet solitary spacecraft f loating through space to its last, the film attempts to tread between the imposing spectacle of its sci-fi trappings and the more subtle and sublime poetry of its meditation on grief and healing. Spying Stars works best when it achieves that perfect balance, such as the very many extended scenes of nature that is backdropped by an unobtrusive reminder of an otherworldly presence. It unfortunately trips when it is required to push forward its sci-fi narrative, creating a more observable disconnect between Jayasundra’s loftier discourse and the futuristic parable he envelopes it with. Through and through, Spying Stars is utterly gorgeous. The scenes are seamlessly woven together, never hurried but very seldom indulgent. Jayasundara seems to acknowledge that the film’s aim is best conveyed through imagery rather than the constraints of traditional narrative. Thus, the film is composed not of lazy exposition but arresting moments that telegraph pain, yearning and reflection with calming ease. 

In a way, the film subverts all expectations of the genre, utilizing the dystopia it places its tale of a returning woman grappling with the recent loss of her father not as the focal point of the film but as a metaphor for everything in contemporary life that has pulled us away from being human. With its quiet preoccupation with a disease spreading worldwide that had government imposing quarantines to returning humans, Spying Stars is that post-pandemic film that eschews the sensationalism of our shared trauma for using that lingering collective ache as a way to ground its offbeat setting and themes. Surveillance and the compulsion to be more mechanical and less human, are enough to grant the film the requisite currency for its exploration of the seeming inevitability of our humanity being depleted by the coercions of modernity. However, amidst the film’s preoccupations with its compelling dystopia, there is a palpable optimism in its somber ruminations. In patiently documenting the emancipation of Anandi, played with such emotional precision by Indira Tiwari, from the many demons that haunt her ever since she came back to Earth as an afflicted returnee, the film maps a trajectory towards rejecting the subjugation dealt by a universe where humanity is literally and symbolically losing to machines. While Spying Stars may sometimes feel distracted precisely because of its future-set fable that switches between genre artifice and profound melancholy, it still feels very much like a thoroughly realized work. It is a sobering reminder of what truly matters amidst the noise, the contrivances and the forced mechanicality of today’s world. It never withdraws from that message, notwithstanding its allegiances both to its sci-fi trappings and contemplative leanings. Amusingly, Spying Stars makes use of a tortoise as a motif. Its opening sequence features the tortoise shyly appearing out of its rugged shell while the background features the space vessel enter the atmosphere. The tortoise again makes an appearance in the end, slowly tottering amidst debris that symbolizes humanity’s triumph.