Noticed for Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN, a film of generational mexican (with Gael García Bernal) schoolboy and pleasant, Alfonso Cuarón is set away from the need in doing one too many episodes of the adventures of the magician bigleux (HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER Of AZKABAN) and now appears to focus on projects far more ambitious. He surprised everyone by making the master standard of the film anticipation of the beginning of the twenty-first century : THE SON OF MAN. Desperate, dirty, broke (seriously, Alfonso, do you really want to make us believe that there will be Renault Avantime, in the future ?), he has anchored the mode of the films that project the current state of crisis in the future.
It is now focusing to the other udder of the cinema of SF : the movie in space. For 45 years, and 2001 – a SPACE ODYSSEY of Stanley Kubrick, the SF is no longer the same and any developer worthy of the name dream to rub a day. Alfonso Cuarón seems to have chosen the same approach, using long shots and camera movements very slow, which contribute to make the whole class. At least in the beginning. The first scene, a clip of a quarter of an hour, is as remarkable : they approach very slowly, a space shuttle, and then one turns around, following Sandra Bullock fussing on the outside of the shuttle and a George Clooney that spins around them. In the background, the Earth (its best angle), but still manages to recognize the “above” of what one is, the camera whirling blurring our benchmarks.
![[CRITIQUE] GRAVITY](http://penelopethemovie.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/critique-gravity-2.jpg "[CRITIQUE] GRAVITY")
Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are the only two actors in the film. The first is usually a good reason not to go to the cinema, but is doing quite well, almost sober and credible. Mr. Nespresso returns to SF after too obscure but immense SOLARIS, and is on auto-pilot : eye that frieze, smile, seductive, and teasing. You can see many other members of the crew activate behind them but we’ll never see their face. Finally, if, once, but you will regret it. There is another well-known player who has participated in, Ed Harris in the case, but it is only present by a voice off, in the now famous role of “Houston, we have a problem”. As it’s going to have problems, even a accumulation. If the title refers to the laws of physics, the scenario clearly demonstrates that Murphy’s law (more known under the name of “the law of the nuisance maximum”) is much more powerful.
“If the title refers to the laws of physics, the scenario clearly demonstrates that Murphy’s law is much more powerful.”
The stage will then switch to the infinitely large, with its wide shots of the space, the infinitely small, by making us go up into the helmet of the astronauts. The film becomes incredibly immersive, making us feel the loneliness of the astronaut in lack of oxygen and derives from the infinite to nothingness. The camera makes the spinning top as its characters, the viewer has no reference in any of this black void and the 3D successful reinforces this sense of immersion. The action is not left with sequences of destruction of spacecraft impressive, returning at regular intervals (normal when one is in orbit) and with a bit of geopolitics (still a blow to the Russians ?).
In the end, even if you can not escape a few choke points (music-invasive, sacrifice, difficult past…), the experience is intense enough (it was often the eyes wide open at the show) to make one of the shocks of the year, which is a cornerstone of the SF realistic and finally register Alfonso Cuarón among the filmmakers who matter.
Roman
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