"AT 600KM ABOVE PLANET EARTH THE TEMPERATURE
FLUCTUATES BETWEEN +258 AND -148 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT.
THERE IS NOTHING TO CARRY SOUND
NO AIR PRESSURE
NO OXYGEN
LIFE IN SPACE IS IMPOSSIBLE"
The movie begins the text shown above along with the beautiful and ecstatic appearance of the Earth shot from the tranquil universe.
1. The Story is fairly simple, but it is rhythmical and evocative.
Mission specialist Dr. Ryan Stone is on her first spacewalk to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. The mission's commander, Matt Kowalski, was on his last flight before retirement. The movie focuses mainly on these two characters (They are actually the only people the audiences can see in the movie). After a few minutes into the film, a message from the Earth says that Russia's firing of its own satellite to dismantle it has caused a chain reaction. After another few minutes, all hell breaks loose. The Space Shuttle Explorer gets hit by debris and breaks into pieces, killing their co-workers immediately. The movie follows the story of Dr. Ryan Stone and Matt Kowalski struggling to return to the Earth. It is a simple story, yet breathtaking. The movie seems to know when to keep the suspense and satisfy the audience throughout the film.
2. The view of the universe on the IMAX screen and its camera work is phenomenal.
Personally, one of the biggest reasons for watching space films is its visual style. The movie not only raised its visual effect to the limit, but it gives the audience a feeling of being in space.
One of the main reasons why the audience can feel of being in space is the camera work. The film is renowned for its 12 minutes and 30 seconds long-take intro. During the opening sequence, the camera work introduces the characters, rotates around the space shuttle, and even enters inside of the helmet! The film won the Academy Awards for 'Best Visual Effects' and 'Best Cinematography'.
3. Dr. Ryan Stone's acting is incredible
After half of the movie, Dr. Ryan Stone becomes the sole survivor of the Explorer. Although most of the movies progress through dialogue, with only one character alive, this movie takes a drastically different approach. In the inevitable part, Dr. Ryan Stone delivers information to the audience through soliloquy. But the movie effectively conveys information even in nonverbal ways: breathing. Since there is no medium to deliver sound in space, all other sounds are not heard and only the sound of breathing can be heard. The movie uses it cleverly, giving a quick, harsh breath sounds in the tense part and a calm, stable breath sounds in the other part. The actress is even said to have practiced only her breath sounds separately!
4. ITS MESSAGE
Ironically, the movie takes 99 percent of its screening time in places without gravity. Then, why is the movie not called zero-gravity? Why would it be called gravity? Some critics call it a human drama. I will, too, because the movie contains a number of symbolic materials such as <Ad Astra> that was introduced earlier. To briefly schematize the symbolic structure of a movie, the Earth will mean life and hope, and the universe will mean escape and death. Dr. Ryan Stone, the main character of the movie, was living a reluctant life after the death of her daughter on Earth. Then she was selected for a mission in space and had an accident, going through a period of intense survival from space to Earth, and then undergoing a process of rebirth to live a "life." In other words, what gravity means in the movie will be the direction to life (the direction to the Earth), and the director's intention to name the movie "Gravity," which goes on in a state of zero gravity throughout the screening period, will be to consider and aspire to the meaning of life.
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