‘In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.’ (Harry Lime in The Third Man, 1949)

To Switzerland’s meager list of achievements can now be added the country’s first sci-fi film. Cargo is set in 2267 (which is about seven minutes past 11 on a cuckoo clock) and Earth is almost uninhabitable because of environmental damage. The human race has been forced to live on orbiting space stations that are increasingly overcrowded, plague-ridden and threatened by terrorists. Everyone’s ambition is to find the money to start a new life on a distant planet called Rhea, which is like an unspoilt Earth of old.

Dr Laura Portmann (played by Anna-Katherine Schwabroh) wants to be reunited with her sister, who’s already made the trip to Rhea. So she signs up for a job on the cargo vessel Kassandra, which is making the eight-year trip to a space station in Rhea’s orbit. The small crew hibernate for the majority of the journey, taking turns to monitor the ship’s operations in eight-month shifts. Towards the end of her stint, Laura and security chief Samuel Decker (Martin Rapold) make a discovery about the nature of the vessel’s cargo that endangers the crew and has terrifying ramifications for mankind itself.

When Danny Boyle directed his own sci-fi film Sunshine in 2007, he observed: ‘Directors don’t go back into space unless they’re contractually obliged to do so. I think it’s partly because the standard set by previous films, the masterpieces, is so high that you have to meet that standard.’ Cargo doesn’t meet that standard and sometimes it’s weighted down by the debt it owes to some of those masterpieces. Yet first-time directors Ivan Engler and Ralph Etter have crafted a thoughtful film that looks far more expensive than it has any right to on its modest budget.

Cargo is most effective when focusing on the solitude of space and its impact on the human imagination. The filmmakers are self-confessed fans of metaphysical directors like Antonioni and Tarkovsky, which is apparent – and I’m avoiding spoilers here – in the story’s depiction of life as something extraordinary. The downside is that the meditative pacing also borders on dull, which isn’t helped by the fact that Kassandra’s crew – Laura aside – are too thin on dialogue and character to sustain interest in their fortunes. Also, like a slice of Emmental, the plot is full of holes.

Despite its flaws, it’s refreshing to find a sci-fi film that avoids the usual Hollywood conventions. It’ll be interesting to see where Engler and Etter go from here.

Cargo (Optimum Home Entertainment) is out now on Blu-ray and DVD.

Colin Houlson