Gravity starts just like any other space movie and then comes this extraordinary fifteen minute single shot,
where the camera pans between two astronauts. It starts from outside with the
astronaut outer view and goes into the helmet of the astronaut and gives us a
glimpse of the UI and seamlessly pops out and this transition conveniently
proves the stand point of the movie, “In space nobody can hear you
scream”.
Alfonso Cuaron is back behind the camera from Children of
men, after seven long excruciating years, this time with a vengeance to
entertain the crap out of you. Not sure why this movie is termed as sci-fi, as
there is no fiction involved here. It’s a masterpiece science-horror movie,
with no alien stuff involved but a more real intelligent disaster. Imagine 127
Hours in space, with more visceral, moving, immersive and yeah add 3D(For once
3D is worthy here and the movie deserves it). Technically its an astonishing
achievement, this will be the only film that I would go back to watch in 3D in
IMAX again. Also for once, the movie’s filming techniques would be as interesting
as the film.
So what’s different in Gravity given that there
have been other films about astronauts stranded in space? For one, Cuaron is a
deadly filmmaker, a shaman. He absolutely nails the staging and pacing of the
film, making it a 90 minute tense, dizzying, breathless experience. The
detailing, the digital effects work and the long, uncut takes will divorce your
jaw from the rest of your face. It’s not just one of the great CGI films of the
decade but one of the five greatest uses of CGI in the history of cinema. When
James Cameron was fawning over the film, he wasn’t kidding - Cuaron, Lubezski
and their special effects team really have crafted something extraordinary
here.
Apart from using groundbreaking technology like an LED box
that’d change filmmaking as we know it, Gravity has a ‘believable’
disaster plot and a heroine who is quite different from the stock scream queens
that you expect from Hollywood. She is smart, she has a reason to make us root
for her, and more importantly, she’s heroic rather than corny, ping ponging
between her primal urge to survive the disaster and her existential wish to
stop trying. Sandra Bullock is terrific here, always convincing, despite the
green screen around her, holding the film on her own in the vast emptiness of
space.
There are some scientific fallacies in Gravity but
laws of science can’t be questioned anymore seeing as Sandra Bullock broke them
- she probably went around the space time continuum and aged backwards, because
she looks 30 despite being 50. Except for Clooney’s wisecracks the lines
(written by Cuaron’s son Jonas) are mostly pedestrian and simplistic, but not
grating. One thing that I actually found problematic was a scene where the
heroine’s weakest moment has a man saving her – it’s a tiny nitpick but it’s a
little jarring to see a strong female protagonist being rescued by the hero in
a film built around a strong independent female.
Regardless, all flaws of Gravity become infinitely
smaller the bigger the screen you watch it on. In IMAX the film is perfect,
utterly faultless. Cuaron clearly takes inspiration from video games with POV
shots of Bullock’s character shuttling from one space station to another. One
first person sequence where she changes her space suits and heads out to repair
the damaged station is straight out of Dead Space. If this movie makes
money, it’d have the potential for Hollywood to invest a bit more into smart
original movies than shameless 3D cash grabs. If you’re interested in that kind
of a future, you should buy your tickets right about now.
