WEveryone knows the outcome of Apollo 13, the seventh crewed mission in America’s Apollo space program: a 1970 expedition to the moon that had to be aborted after an oxygen tank in the command module burst. The story has been told on numerous occasions before, in feature films – especially the Tom Hanks-interpret Apollo 13 – and in documentaries. But notoriety doesn’t diminish the impact of this excellent documentary by Peter Middleton, who directs here solo, having previously worked with James Spinney on the award-winning Notes on blindness.
Apollo 13: Survival draw on NASA’s extensive archival resources, dramatic reconstructions, interviews and, most effectively, never-before-seen home video footage and Life magazine photos of the family of mission commander Jim Lovell elegantly threaded throughout the story. Touching stuff.
