Film: Gravity

Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Genre: Sci-Fi Drama
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Glynn Place Stadium Cinema
Grade: A

There are many, many things that Gravity does astonishingly well: the long (seemingly) uninterrupted shots that seem to be filmed with a camera floating as freely and as lightly as any other object in zero gravity, the adjustments in perspective (first person that works?) and lighting that leave us stranded in space along with Sandra Bullock, the visual images of rebirth and resurrection. But perhaps the most startlingly effective for me, given all the well-deserved talk of the film's immersive 3-D and technological boundary pushing, was just how effectively the film uses sound. In fact, if the film doesn't win an Oscar for Sound Editing and/or Sound Design, I'll be shocked. 

It's certainly not an accident. The film opens with a bit of text about the silence in space, and Cuaron uses that silence carefully and intentionally. Much of the sound seems to occur at a distance, and we don't "hear" it so much as feel it, the same way Bullock's Ryan Stone does as the vibrations of a drill, say, are filtered through her suit. The technique allows us as viewers access to the world in a way we might not if traditional slam-bang sound effects and foley work were included. The tension is ratcheted up as we see chaos, noise, violence all around us, and hear . . . almost nothing. It gave me chills.

As the film progresses, and silence takes on an additional weight when Stone is cut off from ground control, Gravity allows sound to take on a nearly religious aspect. Is there anyone out there (or up there, if we take a spiritual philosophical bent) listening to our words, our prayers, or are we alone in the void of space? Maybe both, the film seems to suggest, and silence--and what fills it, or what we fill it with--becomes increasingly weighty. It was one of my favorite aspects to a film that had so many noteworthy elements.

The effects work here is truly incredible. I have no idea how the majority of these scenes were filmed, because it feels like it takes place in space. The cinema scholar in me wants to understanding how it was done--how much of this is green screen and real actors? How much of it is pure CGI? How do they make Bullock float so convincingly? But the cinema fan in me wants to know none of those things and just bask in the wonder of the film. There is much to wonder at, after all--including Sandra Bullock's performance. I have not been on board with much of her attempts to move beyond comedienne and rom-com actress (where she is very gifted), but I bought into here as Ryan Stone. She seems smart and capable, as well as burdened and terrified, as well as strong, as well as weak, as well as everything else. It is still a very "Hollywood" role (whatever that means), but I went in to the film with grave doubts about her ability to carry such a heavy role (again with the puns) and she acquitted herself admirably, I think. If you don't buy into her, the film will ultimately feel empty (the way another ground-breaking effects film, Avatar, has always struck me), but Bullock really makes it work. I found myself rooting for her and her survival, as well as her discovery of her inner strength and resolve.

In the end, though, this is a film about survival, and figuring out what to hold onto and what to let go of. That it does so in such a knuckle-whitening manner is admirable, and that it does so while creating such a believable (and terrifying) scenario is all the more reason for praise. This may be in my top ten or twenty theater experiences this year. I normally don't want to buy into the hype, but this really worked for me. I only wish I had been able to see it in IMAX.

And holy cow, even without that larger screen, Cuaron reminds us that space is just so big.