Last
night I drove 150 miles to take to the nearest large screen movie house to see Gravity in 3D. That’s one of the realities of living
on the west coast of Ireland, but when the film ended we sat in silence for a
moment, wowed, amazed, thrilled and moved. It was well worth the journey.
This
film works on so many levels.
We have all heard about its technical innovation and achievement. It is a thrilling ride through
space, and space seen in ways we have never seen it before, even on NASA
footage. The co-producer, co-writer and Director Alfonso Cauron and the
cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezski
have worked together on six films,
including The Children of Men.
Making
that film they devised new rigs and employed leading edge technology to great
effect, and for Gravity they have found entirely convincing ways to
persuade us that we are floating in space.
Lubezski
has also worked with Michael Mann
(Ali)
Tim Burton (Sleepy Hollow) Terrence Malik (The Tree of Life and To
the Wonder)
plus the Coen Brothers and Martin Scorsese, all of them demanding films, but Gravity must the
most demanding project he has ever worked on. When Sandra Bullock’s character Dr Ryan Stone is spinning out of control as disaster
strikes the Space Shuttle she is working outside, we first of all see her
spinning against the backdrop of earth and space, then we enter her helmet as
space spins around her.
As
my friend Paul emailed me afterwards one of the technical aspects that left me in total awe was
how utterly seamlessly the 3-D was maintained across shot-transitions.
It’s easy to see how mismatched perceptual planes could have been really
jarring, and utterly destroyed the “You are there” sense of total immediacy…but
somehow, miraculously, the perceptual-continuity illusion was maintained quite
seamlessly throughout.
This is one of the few science fiction films
that takes the Alien tag line In space no one can hear you scream
seriously. The only sounds we hear
are from within the suit.
The disaster that drives the plot is soundless, as hundreds of pieces of
debris from recently destroyed space satellites rip the shuttle apart. My only regret is that the
overblown music tries to tell us what we should be feeling. Inferior films sometimes need this, but
here the script, acting and moving images do all the work necessary. I understand that the trailer
used Arvo Part’s Spiegel im Spiegel, and I wish they had stayed with
that minimalist style - if any music is really needed. I would like to watch the whole thing
in silence, and doubt if much would be lost.
Space
must be the most hazardous environment we can enter and surely no one goes
there without first coming to terms that they may not return. So this film is about life and death,
loss and hope and there are gentle
and often subtle spiritual undercurrents running through it.
I
am not going to talk about the plot, which is simple and direct. This film relies on amazing and
innovative cinematic techniques and rock solid performances. It seems that Sandra
Bullock was sixth in line for the lead.
I will not identify the first five, Google will tell you if you really
want to know, but we are sixth time lucky here. I was disgruntled when Sandra Bullock won
an Oscar for The Blind Side. I thought her performance was utterly competent, but
in no way spectacular. I
think The Blind Side was the kind of self congratulatory US movie
that encourages its audience to ignore the systemic problems of its society by
concentrating on individual stories of good luck or compassion. For me the real ‘blind side
performance’ that year was Gabourey
Sidibe’s in Precious.
But I devoutly hope that Ms Bullock will be suitably rewarded for the
sheer physical hard work and extra-ordinary discomfort she endured to bring her
character’s dilemma to life. Any
human being who is paid to go into space has to be remarkable. They need to be physically tough,
very clever and emotionally stable and utterly courageous. Sandra Bullock persuades us she is all
of these, and her character is also vulnerable. Dr Stone is not Super Woman, but she is a super
woman.
George
Clooney is her supporting actor, and well chosen. His gentle humour and our awareness of his charm are
worked to great advantage here.
Ed Harris is the voice of Mission Control from Houston, on the ground
instead of in Apollo 13, there is also a sly reference to Alien and a
delightful one to WALL-E, but this film does not rely on SF movie
references.
