Gravity
Wednesday, November 20, 2013 8:40:37 PM | (Age Not Specified)
For centuries humans have lived under the solopsistic assumption that the Universe they live in has been designed with them in mind. But truth is that the Universe is a truly inhospitable place, and, if anything, our existence is mere happenstance, and Gravity illustrates that beautifully. Starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock as NASA astronauts, Cuaron sucks you in from the first shot: A long shot of Earth as a space shuttle eventually makes its way into the frame, ending up in a close shot. Filming in 3-D, Cuaron captures the immense and deafening silence of space, the floating motion of zero gravity, along with the hopelessness that you would feel if you ever got stranded in space. The only survivors are Ryan Stone, a mission specialist played by Bullock, and Matt Kowalsky, a veteran shuttle commander on the final run of his career. The genius behind Gravity is Cuaron and his cinematographer’s ability to keep the audience in weightless suspension right along with the astronauts. It’s the closest thing most of us will ever get to knowing what it’s like to be in space. Cuarón captures the genuinely poetic feeling for the ways in which motion carries through space. It’s one of the finest portrayals of space travel in cinema history. While the visuals were magnificent, it’s Cuaron’s use of sound and silence that accentuates everything. The moments of mass destruction in orbit are filmed in silence factoring in that sound does not travel in space.