Gravity (2013)
“Life in Space is Impossible”. That’s the line that precedes
Alfonso Cuaron’s 90-minute spectacle and is an apt quote for what the film is
trying to get across. There isn’t much of a story in a sense it is more an
experience as Nasa medical officer Dr Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) must get to
get to a working space station and perform re-entry and most of all avoid
drifting into deep space. Very deep space.
While you may not have heard much about this film before
it’s cinema release it is a ground-breaking effort that finally portrays space
more accurately in terms of dimensions. Foreground and background can very
quickly intertwine and motion is a loose concept as we see Astronauts Stone and
George Clooney’s Matt Kowalski navigate through the vast expanse. It’s an epic
tale in terms of scale, with the earth a permanent backdrop; gorgeously
realised with immense detail. A new
innovation called a ‘light-box’ was created to get the exact lighting for the
sun’s rays to fall on the character’s suits as they revolve and float around
endlessly.
Keeping to the realism is the fact that we only hear
communications and the low rumble of the machinery but no exaggerated sound
effects that go against the fact that space is a vacuum. It is the first film
since 2001 to mute any space sounds and in many ways this film feels tonally
and in production a close connection to Kubrick’s masterpiece. While Gravity
doesn’t carry the same weighty themes it makes up for it in emotion. Though
there are a few lulls in the film as well, particularly when Stone is out of
the suit and in the relative safety of a command module.
There is also an inherent beauty to the characters drifting
through off to the point of being a speck in the distance. While some moments
from the astronaut’s POV or in the International Space Station resemble video
games, it is forgotten every time there is a shot of the earth. When Bullock’s character
poignantly talks about the little details of her deceased daughter’s room
whilst staring into the oblivion of space there is a lot of power in the shot.
Whilst Steven price’s music suitably augments this without ever feeling too
strong only when chaos returns to the temperamental interstellar ocean.
The plot and
everything else literally revolves around Bullock’s timid heroine who must
simply survive, though frequent problems fall in her way and she descends into
a frantic state that is delivered in tune with the subdued tone of the film.
Alfonso Cuaron co wrote this film and returns to directing sci-fi after 2006’s
brilliant Children of Men adaption. Though this is a grander drama, both films
shared similarities in their nihilistic visions, long takes and ground breaking
effects. The film did not have too much hyped attached to it until it’s
premiere at the Venice Film Festival, but it deserves it for pushing the visual
medium with it’s excellent combination of digital sets and photo realistic
cinematography.
The opening shot is
what you could call a fixed shot of the earth while the shuttle in orbit and
Clooney’s jet packed Captain slowly come into view and then grow in size
without any feeling of unnatural zooming. It captures flow of moving through
space and is also the reason why this is possibly the best use of 3D to date.
Only the 3D could capture the unparalleled depths of space. Almost to dizzying
proportions as Bullock gets detached from the space shuttle in a debris shower
that will go down as one of the most terrifying sequences in cinematic history.
The sudden destruction and breaking apart of space stations like tinfoil is
amazing particularly when it is captured in silence and the flying debris
showers that are a recurrent threat never allow the audience to relax as they
whip past the screen they create pure terror.
In fact the audience
are never allowed to relax as this is what Cuaron had intended; Life in space
is impossible, as Cuaron, Lubezki and Bullock have shown.
*****
