I'm sure that, given the above, much of the artistic and scientific depth will have been lost on me, so I shall just give a brief summary of what I thought, what I enjoyed, approaching it without knowing or understanding that backdrop! It is indeed a story of a huge number of people on a huge spaceship leaving the earth behind as we are given glimpses of how earth has been destroyed at some future date, not specified. The human race needs to find a new home. So our huge spaceship, stacked full of people, is supposed to be on a 3-week long trip to Mars, but something goes wrong, the captain has to ditch the fuel and the spaceship is meandering off into no-man's-land.
There's some lovely imagery created with a relatively meagre budget - the 'lifts' taking people from earth to the Aniara for example - most of the special effects do look pretty low-budget, but also somehow good/interesting. I have read that the film's sets were not made/created by the filmmakers but unused shopping centres, car-parks and cross-channel ferries were used instead, thus cost-saving. And when you know that, you can see it very clearly.
We follow some of the staff/crew mainly, and in particular one lady who is in charge of MIMA, a bizarre 'service' which enables people to lay flat on the floor with their head in a foam-looking face protector whilst above and around them, MIMA creates images in their minds of calming, lovely scenes back on earth before is had been destroyed, reading their minds, personalising it for each individual. So typically waterfalls and isolated lakes etc.
Our crew members are depicted as a typical cross-channel ferry crew or airliner staff, pretty much bored of the routine of shuttling people from the earth, just a job, novelty and fascination worn off. Even during the 'lift' service from earth up to the ship, fascinating as it would be, they are not even bothering to look out of the window, just sleeping.
Lost in space, I'm not quite sure why they couldn't be rescued and communicate with earth, but perhaps it's to do with the sheer size and numbers. Perhaps there was only one of these spaceships. Anyway, the captain tells the travellers about the catastrophe and says that they are going to slingshot around a planet and get back on course, but that the process will take 2 years. Shock/horror - nobody can believe it - but they just have to accept it. They're growing some algae in a farm on the ship which appears to be likely to feed everyone, on a basic level, pretty much indefinitely. And strangely, the alcohol doesn't seem to run out very quickly!
Our MIMA lady shares a cabin with another crew member who is clearly depressed, negative and nihilistic about mankind, life, the universe and pointlessness of existence. Furthermore, she has inside-knowledge (which she shares via the bottom of a bottle of spirits) about the fact that the people have been lied to about the 2 years and it's going to be nothing of the sort - they are lost, hopelessly drifting in space forever. MIMA gets overloaded with people's negative thoughts and creates a secondary catastrophe of its own ending up with people resorting to bizarre behaviours, creating cults, shedding clothing, repopulating with each other openly and more as they all despair, realising, one-by-one, the hopelessness of their situation and existence.
There's so much to unpack here that I don't stand a chance really covering anything like all of it. Best to watch it and/or read the book/poem and make up your own mind about what it's saying about the insignificance of human existence, hopelessness, meaning, the frailty of planet earth, the infinite, bleak nature of space in terms of human acceptance/understanding and do hang about for the finale as we're exposed to a powerful and soul-stirring conclusion. Yes, there are scientific inconsistencies, but lay that aside and get stuck into it as-is. It's subtitled (or I guess you might find dubbing) and available now via various streaming services. Well worth a mind-bending watch.
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