The manipulation of technology to induce emotion. A diligently, artfully crafted piece of cinematic machinery - its cogs and wheels, nuts and bolts all visible, for the closer you look, the easier it is to appreciate the workmanship. The mystery is in how something so cold and technical can have such an impact on the human mind, and conjure up such intense empathy. At this point, the closer you look, the harder it is to care, but you'll not be compelled to while you watch Gravity. It is so successful in its cause and so pristine in its creation that you'll be compelled only to be compelled. What a spell Alfonso Cuaron puts us under. What images he and his team of immensely talented, and better yet acute, filmmakers design for us, and what a stunning aural accompaniment is provided by an inventive sound crew and the composer Steven Price, his wrenching score adding an operatic quality to the film. Scenes of danger and destruction that had me yelping, so engrossed in this woman's story of survival was I, so terrified by the torrent of terror she must cope with, and so mesmerised by the incommunicable beauty of this genius concoction of production design, visual effects and cinematography. This is technology at its most advanced, and manipulation of it at its most skilled, and such is the wonder of Gravity. Through it all, Sandra Bullock, largely stripped of her trademark charm, her fraught features suddenly so angular, framed by an androgynous haircut, harrowed by the pain of yesterday and the peril of today. She is so imperilled not by nature, but by mankind and the mind, by others' actions and her own reactions. The battle she wages is not against the life that circumstance threatens to take from her, but the life that her thoughts and emotions threaten to take from her, and she will take control of circumstance and she will succeed. And when she can divorce herself from this unnatural state, she will embrace nature as a part of it herself, as we all are. A return to reality, and one of the greatest escape stories ever put to film.
just chiming in that your loser aka me finds the background a bit harder to read than the last one you had. that is all... ;)
ReplyDeleteYou mustn't have seen it the way it was in between... ;)
DeleteExcellent review.. The experience of watching Gravity is immensely satisfying and impressively unique. A phenomenal visual accomplishment. Lubezki is four months away from collecting that Oscar. If there's, as people are counting on every Oscar movie getting good reception already, a lock, its Cinematography of Gravity. And Visual Effects too, of course..
ReplyDeleteWe can discuss about the visual manipulation in time to come as the season progresses.
And we can also talk about how he deserves to be nominated for To the Wonder as well!!
DeleteI went to see it a second time on its second day of release, then took a day off today. Never before been so enthralled by a film on second viewing in the cinema. Might go for a third time tomorrow!