After hearing a lot about
Gravity, I had settled down late one night prepared for a film that I thought would be about 'to infinity and beyond', vast swathes of space, a heady cocktail of adventure and exploration. What I had not expected was claustrophobia. Or dread, stark and unrelenting.
Gravity was space exploration at its realest I have yet come across (which is actually very little), all the fear and silence and constriction that drives home the immeasurable odds stacked up against human survival in such inhospitable conditions.
Perhaps inhospitable is not the right word. Is a behemoth inhospitable for not noticing that a squirrel might be trying to settle into the space between its legs? Uncaring might be a better choice. Uncaring then.
I could not sit through the entire film. It was
good, however much I had watched was enough to convince me of that. Pared-down, honest, brutal. In a little while, I found my head swimming at merely the visualisation of the lack of motor control, the endless drifting, the still more endless silence, broken only by the distorted crackle of voices over the transmitter.
I did sit through
Interstellar today. I don't know yet quite what to think of it. Where there was restraint in
Gravity, there is spillage in
Interstellar. Everything is underlined: close-up shots and momentous music-in case you miss it otherwise. Believe me, I am not one to complain about a movie being emotional. In every film I am the sappy fool hoping that every 'nice' character makes it out of the film healthy and happy. But while I dutifully tear up during the first watch, I do resent it in hindsight when a director pokes me in the eye with a cue that something is significant. I'll figure it out on my own, thank you. I'd like the chance, at any rate. I remember Sandra Bullock's character in
Gravity, Dr. Ryan Stone, speaking over the transmitter in a winded, exhausted voice about her daughter's death after being rescued by a fellow astronaut from spinning around wildly in space, unharnessed. In some ways, I think, my reaction to that felt more authentic.
Here in
Interstellar were top-notch actors being made to ham like there's no tomorrow. Michael Caine's Dr. Brand Sr. clearly loves Dylan Thomas' 'Do not go gentle into that good night'. While I love that poem (and the first use in the film against stunning visuals), him choking out the words on his deathbed was a bit much. And Cooper in the fifth dimension, screaming and overturning books was an example of a good moment stretched too, too far. Good visualisation, but really? 'It was you, you were my ghost?'!
But despite these things, here is what I loved about
Interstellar. I loved that the mind-boggling expanse of space exploration was offset by the all-too-short lifespan of their loved ones back on earth. These daughters and fathers and families were living, breathing and aging, not merely existing in some shadowy realm of memory. I loved the section where Cooper comes back to find 23 years' worth of messages. Matthew McConaughey is gorgeous in the scene. Laughing, crying, shaking at all the missed moments and milestones. I like that Tom, his son, having believed for too long, ends up a little damaged; and that Murph, the daughter, who learnt to doubt, copes a little better. These I thought were masterstrokes in thinking about human relationships. Relativity has never been as heartbreaking. As magnificent as the first shot of Saturn was, and it
was magnificent, I like that we had shots of these brilliant men and women feeling queasy and afraid at being thrust into the middle of the great unknown. And most of all I loved the languid introduction, slow and unyielding despair at how badly we have damaged this home of ours.
I think
Interstellar will be a film that will revisit me in sudden slices. Moments that made my stomach drop or my heart soar. I think it was more because of these moments that I felt angry about the film not having been able to sustain its brilliance throughout.But well, I suppose this is one instance where, 'There's always next time' works.
