Ga, Ga: Glory to Heroes

Resistance is futile in Szulkin’s stunningly nihilistic dystopian satire. In a future where life on Earth has become so wonderful that only prisoners are used for the risky business of space exploration, poker-faced intergalactic inmate Scope (Daniel Olbrychski) is sent on a seemingly doomed mission to an uncharted planet. Upon his arrival, he discovers a world curiously like a dilapidated, postapocalyptic Earth, where he is welcomed by the populace as a “hero,” an ignominious honor, he soon learns, that comes with a most barbaric fate. Taking the film’s appropriately nonsensical title from the babble of his baby daughter, Szulkin delivers a bleakly acerbic commentary on the absurdity of life in a police state.