Gravity (2013)
Let me take you back to that long, magical summer of 1996. Football was coming home, Girl Power was taking over the charts and that Tory scumbag John Majors was nationalising all the mines and stuff. Am I right, comrades?
It was also the summer made famous by the fact that 12-year-old me walked out of two consecutive cinematic experiences spluttering those three momentous words: “Best. Film. EVER!”. First came Twister, the dazzling visual effects lead thrill ride of tension about man’s battle with tornadoes. But this was quickly usurped by Independence Day, the dazzling visual effects lead thrill ride of tension about man’s battle with aliens. Now hold that thought…
Because it’s true. All of it. Everything you’ve heard. Every word that people have told you about how bare amazebollocks (that’s what these so-called ‘people’ say, right?) Gravity’s visual effects are have got it bang-the-fuck on (oh my God, my 12-year-old self would have got so told off for saying that).
This story of a team of astronauts (two of which comprise Sandra Bullock and George Clooney) stranded beyond the earth’s atmosphere when space flotsam writes off their shuttle, is a technical master class. Alfonso Cuarón’s decision to put us up close and personal with the characters and action shows guts as well as astronomical faith in his cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and team of effects artists. And they repay him with a seemingly flawless display of discombobulating, dizzying shots. The genius is to set the camera steady, not trying to keep up with the wildly spinning and swinging characters and apparatus. The result is that we feel the full force and desperation of the disaster, and leave the cinema feeling as though we’ve spent the last 90 minutes rolling down Everest in an out-of-control zorb.
Consider then that this is done in a zero-gravity setting, and the achievement is more impressive still. Now factor in the fact that Cuarón has thrown 3D into the mixer, and it is undeniably astonishing. The use of 3D puts one in mind of the Wim Wenders dance documentary Pina, the way the camera waltzes intimately between the protagonists, but Gravity sets a new high water mark for visual effect cinema to which the likes of Cameron, Abrams, Blomkamp and, yes, why not, Emmerich, will be clambering to match and eventually exceed.
Particular highlights, as if any are required, include the remarkable 17 minute (although possibly Rope-esque) opening tracking shot…in space; a take where the camera literally pans into and out of Bullock’s space helmet; the in-space-nobody-can-hear the obliteration of a massive space station; and a wonderfully artistic shot of Bullock adorned in vest and pants recoiling into a floating foetal position, which brings to mind Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey in equal measure.
It is when you begin to compare it to such other cosmic classics however, that you realise that Gravity isn’t one.
In fact, the title itself should be a clue, because gravity is the not the only thing notably devoid from the movie. There is no connection with the two leads. Bullock’s quasi-existential crisis is a real bum note. “Protagonist tries to avoid facing the personal tragedy by doing x”, is a well-trodden narrative arc and one that Cuarón has exploited with resounding success through the likes of Y Tu Mamá También and his no-less ambitious Children of Men. But “protagonist tries to avoid facing personal tragedy by becoming an astronaut and embarking on lonely trips to space” simply doesn’t cut the mustard, no matter how much portentous and, frankly, second-rate monologue you want to shove in the script.
Courtesy of Jon Hill – http://www.jon-hill.co.uk/
And with the disconnect, follows a lack of genuine suspense. I’m sure Bullock’s characterisation was researched to the nth degree, but the cold, measured way in which she updates the deteriorating status of her oxygen supply could be reportage of the battery on her iPhone as she tries to squeeze in one last game of Cut the Rope. Considering Alien is clearly an influence, there is a marked lack of jeopardy.
It doesn’t help that, ironically, there is only so much you can do in the infinite paradigm of space in order to build drama. Can the spaceship avoid the flying debris? Can the human avoid the flying debris? Will the rope hold the weight of the spaceship? Will the rope hold the weight of the human? Will the spaceship burn up on re-entry? Will the human burn up in the aflame shuttle? Even at meagre 90 minutes, Gravity doesn’t do enough to maintain suspense.
On a final side note, the bizarre plot device where it materialises that Russians cause the carnage by destroying one of their own spy satellites seems like an anachronistic throwback to post-Cold War films a couple of decades older. I thought that the jingoistic days of the perennial Russian baddie and lingering close-ups of heroic Stars and Stripes were over. Apparently not.
Gravity is style of substance incarnate, something that my 12-year-old self would have loved but Avatar was rightly ravaged for by the critics. And, while I’m not quite that perverse as to compare it to Twister or Independence Day, it shouldn’t take the Academy voters the Hubble Telescope to see that, just because Gravity has been made by a ‘proper’ film maker’, phenomenal effects do not a phenomenal film make.
Gravity; 2013; Dir: Alfonso Cuarón; Stars: Sandra Bullock; George Clooney; 91 mins; 7/10; Probable nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki), Best Editing, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing; Possible nominations: Best Actress (Sandra Bullock), Best Supporting Actor (George Clooney), Best Original Screenplay (Alfonso Cuarón and Jonás Cuarón), Best Original Score (Steven Price)
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