I never saw “Children of Men”

Gravity

Loris really wants to read about “Intolerable Cruelty”, but I will save the best for last. In essence, this means that “Gravity”, box-office topper and critics’ favorite, easily got beaten out by a screwball comedy by the Coens. Both feature George Clooney, but he is definitely more interesting in the latter.

In “Gravity”, Clooney’s character disappears too fast. When he made an appearance later in the film, I was relieved and amused for a second, only to realize that it was – of course – just a dream. The rest of “Gravity” is eyecandy and definitely very suspenseful, but it is mostly a suspenseful survival story. If “Gravity” had underperformed at the box office and been shunned by the critics like “Cloud Atlas”, I would definitely have defended its qualities, in fact, I even preferred “Cloud Atlas” as a film. Instead, the film is widely popular and people are raving about its visual impact. They even lovingly mention how it pay homage to greater science-fiction films like “2001 A Space Odyssey” and are generally thrilled with the film. Of course I am happy to see a modern science fiction film making 200 million dollars at the box office, I just can’t join in the general enthusiasm. Nevertheless, I thought it was worth seeing. The movie is everything these survival stories have to be – tragic, gripping and full of overblown emotions related to the main character’s fear of death. I especially liked the humor George Clooney’s character brought into the film, and wished the film had spent a little more time showing its two characters evolve together.

For me, “Gravity” is the kind of film that does all those important things right – pacing, character development, acting, cinematography, even the sweet close-up shots of Sandra Bullock’s butt – but then fails on small details. For one, we only have two characters to deal with, one male and one female. But is it really necessary to turn them into Walking-Dead-like gender clichés? The male is funny, flirtatious and courageous, and the female is tensed up, lacks self-esteem and is pissing her pants. Similarly, I wish they had at least made an effort to script proper, understandable Chinese – the “Warning! Warning”-style announcements were impossible to understand. It’s almost racist. With that said, I was also bothered by the fact that the Soyuz had a little icon and the Chinese Soyuz had a little buddha on top of the controls. I mean, come on, not everybody is religious and even if they are, it doesn’t necessarily have to be something related to their culture. Mexico may be completely dominated by Roman Catholics, but Chinese people are not all buddhists.

Actually, in terms of shooting the film, I was bothered by a detail. Sometimes, the characters get thrown around and then hit the camera, which makes them bounce back. When this happens, I understand that there isn’t much you can do about it from a technical standpoint, but in terms of the story, it doesn’t really make sense. The film has to look like there is no camera pointed at them, but bouncing off from the camera painfully reminds me that there is one.

Overall, yeah, “Gravity” is great and you must all watch it, in 3D if you can. It’s not really a film for the small screen, so off to the theaters!