Portland Film Society: Gravity 7.30pm Saturday 21 June CEMA Portland Hello, this Saturday the PFS screens Gravity (M). This science fiction epic took home seven Academy Awards, including best director and best visual effects. It has amazing shots of Earth and space, and a fantastic performance from Sandra Bullock. 7 30 as usual for shorts and supper, 8.30 feature. Hope you can make it this Saturday 21st. Please contact Bronwyn 55236186 0400911580 [email protected] for more details. youtube/watch?v=OiTiKOy59o4&feature=kp GRAVITY (M) Review Philippa Hawker SMH September 2013 Genre: Drama, Mystery, Sci Fi, Thriller Duration: 91 mins Director: Alfonso Cuaron Producer: Alfonso Cuaron David Heyman. Lead actor: Sandra Bullock and George Clooney Screenplay: Alfonso Cuaron and Jonas Cuaron Music: Steven Price Language: English Alfonso Cuarons Gravity is a remarkable, exhilarating work, a film that has a cosmic setting and a human scale. Its the kind of movie-making that reminds you of what seems to have been lost in cinematic depictions of space: a sense of wonder. Yet Gravity is, in its own way, quite grounded – closely observed, with a strongly realistic feel. And it has the urgency of a thriller. It begins with a virtuoso opening sequence, more than 12 minutes long that gradually sets up not only situation and character, but also the way the film works, with a poetic, rigorous vision, with shifts of scale and perspective that immerse its audience in the subjective experience of place and time. This is a film of special effects and technological wonders, but it is also gripping and emotionally engaging, anchored by strong, moving performances. There are two central figures, members of a space shuttle team: one is a newcomer, medical engineer Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock), the other a veteran astronaut, Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney). When the film begins, they are outside the spacecraft. This is her first mission and it is meant to be his last before retirement. Shes anxiously trying to execute a repair on the Hubble Telescope, while hes doing his final spacewalk. Mission control at Houston (represented by the voice of Ed Harris, who played astronaut John Glenn in The Right Stuff) is in contact, and things are on course: Kowalsky is doing his charming old-timer shtick, with some self-consciously goofy anecdotes. Suddenly, everything shifts: Houston informs them of an impending threat, debris from an exploded Russian satellite that is heading their way. In what seems like no time, disaster strikes, and the graceful movement and easygoing human contact explodes into chaos: Kowalsky and Stone are left floating in space, scrambling for their lives. Kowalsky, the experienced campaigner, has a plan; Stone does her best to execute that plan. Gravity has quite a bit in common with the film All Is Lost, the closing night feature at this years Melbourne International Film Festival, which will be released in Australia early next year. All Is Lost is the story of a man adrift at sea, using all his wits to survive, and its almost free of dialogue: Robert Redford, the sole cast member, is a man of few words, and he barely talks to himself. And its a film without backstory. Gravity, on the other hand, makes use of dialogue to develop character, setting up exchanges between these two colleagues suddenly plunged into the desperate intimacy of survival: Kowalsky, the old pro, prods Stone to tell him about herself. Its his way of helping to bolster her will, to affirm her sense of connection with the world they are seeking to return to. There are positives and negatives to this aspect of the film: there are some wonderful shared moments, but theres also something a little forced about the backstory that has been created for Stone. Bullock makes it work, however, almost against the odds. Cuaron (The Children Of Men, Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban) co-wrote Gravity with his son, Jonas. Together with their creative team, which includes director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki, visual effects supervisor Tim Webber and composer Steven Price, they have found ways to depict the mystery, sensation and strangeness of this setting: the vastness of space and the claustrophobia of spacecraft, the grace and clumsiness of weightlessness. They work with striking close-ups and elegant tracking shots, they combine sound and silence, humour and fear, a figurine of Marvin the Martian and an image of the Earth. Its a wonderful achievement.
Posted on: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 20:04:09 +0000
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