Freight Night [Review: Cargo]

The Swiss film Cargo is set in a future where the Earth's ecosystem has collapsed and humans live in orbiting refugee camps. Anna-Katharina Schwabroh stars as Laura, a ship's doctor who takes a berth on the Kassandra which is preparing a run to a robotic supply station. It's a long voyage and the crew take turns at the watch while their crewmates are in cryosleep - but guess what: Laura starts to feel she is not alone. I've never seen Schwabroh in anything before but she is perfectly cast: very human, strong in some ways, vulnerable in others.

The Kassandra is a great addition to the claustrophobic spaceship sub-genre, from Laura's first day at work as she struggles to get through the half-working airlock to the obligatory Nostromo or Event Horizon coridoors to the massive automated cargo vault. Laura's predicament and her decisions to wake other crew members lead to mistrust and arguments between them.

Anna-Katharina Schwabroh as Laura

Cargo attempts a complex plot with lots of mysteries, twists and reveals, a few of these are too obvious and there are slightly too many different ideas or sub-plots. On the other hand this complexity does distance the film from many other science fiction films which are often based entirely around a single concept.