Gravity

Gravity

2013

Science Fiction/Drama

4.5 stars out of 5

Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity can like much of fine fiction be enjoyed on multiple levels. The first and most striking is of course the amazing cinematography and technical/artistic skills (editing, sound editing, lighting, special effects, and score) that went into this production. From the opening shot in low Earth orbit, the camera glides toward a bright spot on the horizon that slowly resolves into close-ups of two astronauts working alongside a space shuttle, and then even closer to the faces of George Clooney and Sandra Bullock. We’ll be seeing more of Bullock’s face as the movie progesses. The artistry in writing and directing such a long pan have been seen before, even from Cuarón (see "Children of Men", 2006), but in this case, the pan is achieved with a remarkable degree of brilliance.

The movie can also be watched for the play of emotions across Bullock’s face as she portrays Dr. Ryan Stone. Not just the terror and fear that infect her, but also the remembered pain of a lost child. The inner turmoil in the Stone character is subtle at times during the various quiet moments of the movie, but glaringingly obvious during her most desparate moments of despair.

The story line is a simple and oft repeated one: a team of individuals is lost in space (or at sea, or in the desert, or jungle), and has to fight their way to salvation, both physical and spiritual. Bullock as the neophyte astronaut, Stone is joined in this journey by George Clooney as Matt Kowalski, a experienced and mature astronaut. After the destruction of their space shuttle and loss of all other life, the movie follows Stone and Kowalski through their heroic attempts to save themselves.

The story can also be watched as an allegory about Man in Nature vs. Technological Man. For all but the final beautiful shots along a shoreline, we see Bullock and Clooney surrounded by much of  the technology that Man can muster in the early twenty-first century, but also by the yawning and uncaring void of space. They are in a place where it requires all of man’s ingenuity to surive, and where at any given moment they are seconds away from death. When our hero does reach that shoreline, and we hear the birds singing, see the grass growing and the previously black, but now blue sky, you can strongly sense an argument that this is where Man is supposed to be; at home on the planet on which he has evolved.

That last scene plus one earlier on during Stone’s self-rescue are pivotal, in terms of gaining an appreciation of what the writer/director Cuarón and his writer son Jonás Cuarón have as an overall message: the “delivery” or rescue of Man as viewed via the allegory of birth. There are multiple birthing images as Stone moves down tunnel-like parts of the various space vehicles she enters, viewed alongside panoramic  views of Mother Earth. The most clear images are those where the Cuaróns use a scene of Stone in a fetal-like position with a single umbilical-like hose floating around her, followed later with her emersion from a watery environment, to crawl, to stumble, and then walk on dry land.

To me then, the story can be used in these somewhat more subtle interpretations as a revisit to the old Luddite argument against technology or the pride of Man (i.e. if God had wanted Man to fly, he would have given us wings); that is to say Man is not evolved for Space, thus he does not belong there, and by going there, he is an affront to the normal functioning of the universe. Or and I favor this interpretation more, that the birthing images are clever metaphorical tools for describing a deliverance of/to our stricken hero.

A final note: as a scientist I always watch such movies with a skeptical eye for mistakes. Many have commented already on the massive differences in orbital height for the ISS (International Space Station) and the Hubble telescope, and consequent need for a rather large change in velocity to get from one to the other. And I have to agree, this part bothers me, as well as the apparent fact that the offending satellite whose destruction causes all the havoc is apparently in the same orbit as the Hubble, the space shuttle, the ISS, and the Chinese space station. Rather convenient for the story, but considering the overall artistry of the movie, these are objections that I will pocket. This movie is a must see for every adult.