Gravity
Alfonso Cuarón
Alfonso Cuarón, Jonás Cuarón
90 min.
Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Ed Harris, Orto Ignatiussen, Paul Sharma, Amy Warren, Basher Savage
PG-13 for intense perilous sequences, some disturbing images and brief strong
One of the earliest narrative pictures ever made was Georges Méliès A Trip to the Moon. Since the film’s release in 1902, audiences have always had a fascination with space, the final frontier. A place where our adventures have never reached and our hearts long to explore. 45 years after what is generally considered one of history’s greatest (if not the singular greatest) science fiction films, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alfonso Cuarón’s sparse epic Gravity is likely to vault into the ranks of all-time great sci-fi.
A spacious earth slowly rotates across the screen as a small object comes into view at the far right side of the screen, growing in size until you can make out a massive space shuttle, Cuarón permits the majesty of the awe-inspiring backdrop to set audience expectations for how the film will play out. It’s a gripping opening that reminds me of the simple beginning to Stanley Kubrick’s great picture 2001. Cuarón doesn’t need music, sound or excessive visuals to impress the audience, letting the planet do that for him is the perfect orchestration.
As we close in on the shuttle, three astronauts are busy executing repairs on the craft. Among them are a prominent doctor, Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) pushed into the mission to install a revolutionary device she had been developing for other medical goals. The specifics aren’t important, Ryan’s uneasiness in space is. Having spent her entire life living as meekly as possible, Ryan has to contend with her nervousness and queasiness while carrying out repairs. George Clooney’s experienced space walker Matt Kowalski busily tests out a new jet-pack spinning around the shuttle and his fellow astronauts recounting oft-told tales to Houston’s Mission Control (Ed Harris).
The brief mention of an missile-destroyed satellite encourages the crew to begin winding down their space walk to get inside before the debris intersects their craft. As the tension rises, the audience grips its seats in anticipation of the next beat that could mean success or disaster. This thrilling tone is carried from scene to scene as Ryan and Matt struggle to survive when their safety is in jeopardy and the world they knew is in sight, but not within reach.
These opening scenes represent the film’s only marketing effort focusing on the first 15-plus minutes of the film’s hour-and-a-half running time enables the audience to reel in disbelief, frustration and fear along with our protagonist never knowing precisely whether Ryan will survive to the end or die in any one of a myriad frightening ways.
For her part, Bullock is more than up to the task. As a doctor with a heartbreaking backstory, Bullock adds the necessary level of pathos the audience needs to empathize without weighing it down with unnecessary exposition. Like the film itself, the script is sparsely populated, relying entirely on the viewer to interpret data and project their own insecurities and frailties on the characters, thus injecting themselves into the film. Most of us may never see the outside of our atmosphere, but vicariously Cuarón permits us to live out our fantasies and, in larger part, our fears.
It’s easy to dismiss the film’s screenplay with so little obvious depth, but it’s that simplicity that gives it such profound meaning. Bullock has finally escaped what tethered her to earth while eventually needing that tether as a way to generate hope within. The psychological, social and spiritual ramifications of her various decisions influence her will and desire to survive where others might give up.
This marks director Cuarón’s seventh narrative feature in two decades, a similar trajectory to 2001 director Kubrick who often spent years developing and preparing his various projects. Cuarón’s style is a far cry from Kubrick’s, focusing on simple realism, a concept Kubrick hadn’t worked with since his studio days. Cuarón’s films are typically darker and more introspective than his contemporaries, making his tone stand out better.
His last film, 2006’s Children of Men is a brilliant film, but marks one of his most visceral projects filling his frames with rich setting detail. In space, sparse design is essential, but Cuarón manages to extract the most stunning imagery without filling every iota of it. That brazen design aesthetic adds immeasurably to the work transporting the audience with little effort into the vast bleakness of Earth’s orbit. We get brief scenes of nearly unidentifiable landscapes on Earth while being perpetually tethered back to the action on screen. It’s slow moving, but elegant. Longtime Oscar bridesmaid Emmanuel Lubezki may finally have a winning picture with his gorgeous, evocative photography design. The iconic embryonic imagery of Bullock free-floating inside a space station is one of many beautiful images captured effortlessly by the master cinematographer.
One of my biggest gripes about modern science fiction is its poor reliance on allegory to sell stories. Sci-fi has often been able to elicit powerful messages by paralleling events happening on Earth or exploring the dangers of technological advancement without concern for ethical issues. On the whole, Gravity has no overriding political commentary to make, but that exclusion works in the film’s favor unlike those that ignore or sugarcoat their themes.
Cuarón isn’t as concerned about making a broad statement with his film, he wants to focus on the intimacy of self, the need and desire to refresh one’s life, and the inner turmoil inherent in Earth-bound machinations. In the comfort and isolation of space whether figuratively in terms of time away from others or literally as in the case of Gravity, we can reflect and analyze where we are at in our personal life. From that and through the murky lens of tragedy, we can see more clearly than we ever could carrying out the same dull routine.
While Cuarón’s message with Gravity is manifold, what you pull out of the film is more important than what others or even its director want you to think. Gravity is that rare film where the surface and subsurface themes are compelling to pull apart, but are as equally important to the viewer as their individualized approach to the material. If you find only what Cuarón or critics dictate you find, then you haven’t looked deep enough. The profundity of the narrative is stripped and simplified in order to maximize the imprint each person puts on it in his or her own mind.
Guarantees: Picture, Original Score, Editing, Cinematography, Visual Effects
Probables: Director, Actress (Sandra Bullock), Production Design, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing
Potentials: Original Screenplay
Unlikelies: Supporting Actor (George Clooney), Costume Design, Makeup & Hairstyling
October 10, 2013
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.