At 600km above
planet Earth, the temperature
fluctuates between +258 and -148 degrees Fahrenheit.
There is nothing
to carry sound.
No air pressure.
No oxygen.
Life in space is
impossible.
Don`t
expect extraterrestrial interventions, don`t expect monoliths as in 2001
Space Odissey. You will just experience how fragile is our conquer of
space. Humans in space? Sorry, still not our environment. We are so far
away from Star Treck`s imaginific world.
Don'
t even expect deep space near Jupiter, Neptune, Alpha Centauri or on the
other side of the Galaxy. Gravity, which opened at the 70th Venice
International Film Festival in August 2013, and is directed
by Oscar nominee Alfonso Cuarón (“Children of Men”),
shows us that space is immense and fearful even when
"mother Earth" so near is.. Sandra Bullock
plays Dr. Ryan Stone, an engineer on her first shuttle mission, George
Clooney is the veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski in command. The
mission seems to be an unproblematic, funny routine. The Hubble
Telescope must be repaired. But, suddenly, mission must be aborted:
debris are coming and can cause a destructive chain reaction. Then,
desaster strikes. Here director Cuaron gives his best. the imminente
desaster throws in seconds an incredible involving menace. The illusion
of being in space is in this moment totally convincing and
terrifying.
KOWALSKI
Houston,
in the blind. To confirm:
Mission Specialist Dr. Stone and Mission Commander
Matthew Kowalski are the sole survivors of the STS-157.
When
the shuttle is destroyed, Dr. Stone is drfting separated from the rest
of the crew and must deal with an emotional and
physical extreme situation. And the spectator too. From the moment
that she is rescued by "mentor" pilot and commander Kowalski,
always calm and reassuring in the crisis, she undertakes her
struggle for surviving and returning home. From ISS to module Soyuz, to
chinese station Tiangong and finally to module Shenzhou (good that
Russians and Chinese are out there, isn`it?), she will spiraling down to
earth and down in her psyche, overcoming her past and her feeling of
isolation. In my opinion it seems like a metaphor about the
rebirth of a soul.
Those
who like fights with monsters (count me in) will find this movie at
times a bit boring in its development, but the space frame is gigantic
and marvellous. This is simply another form of action. Fear is, at
times, real.The mix of computer animation and CGI is well done. 3D
efffects are not so gorgeous , yet satisfactory to recreate the
ambience. Moreover Cuarón and supervising sound editor and sound
designer Glenn Freemantle correlated sound and touch. No up and no
down, zero gravity, only the constant , massive presence of an
unreachable Earth, whose gravity you are in search of. You are floating
above our (only one) planet, until you touch the burning entrance
into the atmosphere., until you touch water and ground again.
Freemantle
explains: “One
of the concepts of sound is that it travels through vibrations. When you
touch something, it resonates through that internal connection. So Ryan
is touching and coming in contact with things and you hear through her.”
“We
were very lucky that NASA was willing to share much of the information
they’ve gathered, particularly in the form of photographs and film
footage. Astronauts actually make very good photographers; we got some
truly stunning images. We would look at the time lapse shots they did
from the ISS and say, ‘Gosh, if we did something like that, no one
would believe it was real.’ It was just so amazing.”
Visual Effects Supervisor Webber says.
“So
for us,” Jonás
Cuarón says, “the
meaning of ‘Gravity’ isn’t just what
keeps
your feet on the ground.
It’s
the force that is constantly pulling you back home.”
8/10
Pictures copyright © 2013 Warner Bros.
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