--Ryan Stone, Gravity
Deeply personal characterization and an elegant simplicity, like the original Alien without the horror elements, unite in Gravity, a masterful 2013 film about an astronaut who survives a debris cloud that demolishes her shuttle. The power of everything from prolonged shots with the camera to the layers of the human heart is given a grand stage, and the very beginning perfectly sets up the tone and story: an absolutely incredible, unbroken 13 minute opening shot with natural dialogue, a shifting perspective of Earth and astronauts, and no sound at all besides voices over comms even as a catastrophe tears a spacecraft apart make for a hell of an introduction. Gravity is a masterpiece of storytelling that focuses on a very small cast, the existential weight of being an emotional being, and the sheer vulnerability of humans in outer space. Strong characterization, excellent acting, a flawless narrative focus, and an exploration of survival, grief, and even spirituality make this essential viewing for lovers of artistic competence. Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron helmed one of the greatest movies of the past few decades with this title.
Production Values
Perhaps no film from the last 20 years does a better job of illustrating how aesthetically intoxicating and yet dangerous outer space can be. The camera and the space stations and planetary view it focuses on are immense assets, core pillars of a very sound structure. While the shot at the beginning is the longest, long shots are the norm in this film, and this is one of the most artistically striking and effective choices I have ever seen in not just science fiction, but cinema as a whole. At times, the CGI does look very distinctly like CGI as opposed to the more enduring, realistic look of practical effects, but it is not as if it is easy to go film in outer space for the truest practical effects for a story like this! The human drama and the pairing of uniqueness and thoughtful cinematography more than make up for this. As shots of astronauts making a trek through the minimal gravity of space, it is actually the way the dialogue builds from its own foundation, the character of Sandra Bullock's Ryan Stone, and, when he is onscreen, George Clooney as a fellow astronaut that make the movie theirs. The right cast and enough character development are enough to carry a film on their own, and although Gravity does have more pillars than just casting and performances, the characters and Sandra Bullock in particular (she is the only character for most of the runtime) elevate the movie to extreme heights.
Story
Some spoilers are below.
Astronauts repairing a communication card on a shuttle are warned of a debris cloud created when a missile destroys a Russian satellite. Within minutes, the particles reach the astronauts, two of whom survive as the shuttle they try to reach other space vessels and make their way back to Earth. It is during this endeavor that the dark past of Dr. Ryan Stone comes out, as she lost her daughter in a sudden, unexpected, random accident before she even reached five years of age. Her struggle to summon the desire to live in the cold vastness of space brings her to celebrate life amidst the fact that trials and tribulations that are almost inescapably a part of it.
Intellectual Content
Gravity reflects how things like outer space and the threat of death can so easily force people to directly contemplate the nature of life, values, knowledge, and their own individual personhood as humans, even if they are not the thoroughly rationalistic thinkers that everyone has the potential to be. The imagery itself is used to periodically capture Ryan's initially conflicted longing to survive, such as when she resembles a fetus in the womb as she curls into a ball, floating in a space station with a cord behind her that resembles an umbilical cord. A seeming hallucination of the returning Kowalski (Clooney's character), who had sacrificed himself to give Ryan a better chance of survival earlier, asks her about the "point of living" in light of tragedies and suffering, and it is after this that Ryan finds the renewed motivation to pursue life after outliving not only her young daughter, but also of a companion who did not hesitate to endanger himself for her. A moment where she listens to a person on Earth as she cries while still in orbit and talks to herself about how no one ever taught her how to pray, wondering if it is too late to try, even brings a kind of desperate, subtle spirituality into the film. In fact, this movie is a key example of how entertainment can broach topics and still be incredibly deep in one sense without actually addressing what can or cannot be known about them, or issues like how logical axioms are the utter, intrinsic core of all things or how it is logically necessary for there to be an uncaused cause if there is a physical world. Sandra Bullock's character does not even come close to discovering these facts or many others, but her story remains so very personal and existential in ways that could prompt viewers to genuinely think about the nature of existence.
Conclusion
Gravity does not even need more than a simple premise to stand proudly as a highly existential work alongside later science fiction films of a very philosophical nature like Interstellar, Alien: Covenant, and Marvel's Eternals. Never sacrificing artistic merit for thematic depth or vice versa, it accomplishes what so many other films are created to avoid: a unity of vision, emotional depth, and the potential to naturally prompt even more contemplation about the nature of human existence and the parts of reality that transcend us as individuals and as a species. Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, despite the latter having far more limited screen time, give apex level performances. The cinematography and imagery is consistently used to establish the isolation, awe, and perseverance of the lead. Other than some aging CGI that does not necessarily reflect a poor quality by the standards of 2013, Gravity is legitimately a perfect movie--perfection in art does not mean that no aspect could not have been even deeper or better in some way, but that there are no actual flaws. There is indeed nothing bad about the only things in Gravity anchored to standards of quality that do not change with evolving technological capabilities, those being the human presence, the aesthetics, and the willingness to show how even for non-rationalists, things like outer space and personal trauma, like practically anything a person sincerely dwells on, can provoke philosophical realizations, desires, and feelings that connect with what transcends humanity. An individual person can have penetrating experiences pertaining to this even without rightly understand the heart of reality.
Content:
1. Violence: A dead astronaut is shown after an object hurtled through his skull in outer space.
2. Profanity: "Fuck" is uttered twice, and words like "shit" are used more frequently.
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