An Experience both Beautiful and Intense

Rating: 9/10 (23 October 2018)

The movie opens with a dodgy flight test in an X-15. Armstrong is just a civilian pilot/engineer with a young family at home, and we're immediately thrust into a tight, claustrophobic cockpit with him as he breaches the atmosphere and struggles coming back down. It's simply impossible to describe with words how intense this opening scene is. It's largely devoid of musical soundtrack, instead filled with the rattling and creaking of the aircraft, and all camera angles are strictly from the viewpoint of the cockpit, and the limited visibility gained from within. The controls don't work, and his bouncing off the atmosphere has set him for an inescapable trajectory away from Earth. Strictly speaking there should be no tension here, as we know Armstrong comes out the other end just fine, and yet Chazelle manages to paint a scene so frightening and claustrophobic that the tension plays itself.
After this visceral opening we get the fundamental emotional backbone to the whole film, introducing us to Armstrong's adorable yet terminally ill daughter. We've only seen this guy struggle in a high-atmosphere aircraft and come back to a family he obviously loves so much, and yet already you find yourself invested in this guy and his family tragedy. Nobody told me this was going to be a weepy movie! I didn't bring tissues! The death of Armstrong's daughter weighs heavily on him the entire movie. He withdraws emotionally, turning cold and distant, and every funeral after every failed mission reminds him of his daughter, and at the end we get the most beautiful payoff on the surface of the moon itself.
Compounding this tragedy is the permeating threat of death and failure. The movie highlights a number of failed missions that resulted in Armstrong's friends dying around him, including the Apollo 1 mission. Every failure is not only reinforced as a necessity in Armstrong's dialogue, but also builds up how insanely dangerous this ambition truly was. Any mission could fail for any reason, and before you know it kids have lost their fathers, wives have lost their husbands, and the toll this takes on the families - and Armstrong himself - builds with each failure as well. Every mission enjoys the fruits of increased threat thanks to everything that came before.
One of these failures is one of Armstrong's himself; the Gemini VIII mission, which was a test run for docking with the mothership after the landing. As I mentioned with the opening sequence, everyone knows that Armstrong makes it out alive, and yet the sequence is absolutely not lacking in tension. Again this is thanks to the claustrophobic nature of the filming, which puts the whole perspective on Armstrong. The endless, uncontrollable spinning, the dizziness and lack of coordination, the fighting off unconsciousness set by the increasing G-force, and just not knowing, in that moment, what's caused the problem and how to solve it, with only mere seconds to sort it all out before it's too late. It was really intense!
The actual moon landing itself is done really well as well. You might think at this point in time that the novelty of standing on the moon has faded in the public imagination, yet First Man puts you firmly back into the mindset of how monumental this event was for the history of mankind. Once the Apollo reaches the moons orbit, the close-up shots of it from the peaky little windows are tantalising, and the landing itself is drawn out with every little detail and off-the-cuff problem solving, with a ticking clock in the fuel gauge adding even more tension to another scene that strictly shouldn't have any. But it doesn't stop with the landing. Armstrong starts to climb down the ladder and stops on the landers feet, just inches away from a whole new world. It really starts to sink in that this is completely uncharted territory. No-one has ever been anywhere like this. It's completely alien. That first step we all wait for is imminent and the ramifications of it are so unimaginably huge. Chazelle manages to craft the scene so expertly that it makes the act of exploration and discovery so much more meaningful than any sci-fi film could hope to achieve.
On a more technical basis, the whole movie is made a grand success by it's soundtrack and sound design. The rattling and shaking of the pods is enough to set anxiety in anyone, and the rare cutaways to the external spacecraft are bathed in absolute silence, befitting the vacuum of space. The soundtrack is simply perfect as well, utilising alien and spacey sounds and synths (including Armstrong's personal favourite, the Theremin) to create music so atmospheric and ethereal, yet so unreal and pioneering. It builds up the emotional ramifications of everything; the significance for both mankind and Armstrong personally. And yet it also knows precisely when to cut out entirely and let the action speak for itself.
Likewise the film is a feast visually. The movie is done almost purely from Armstrong's perspective, and every camera shot is used to reinforce this. I mentioned it above, but I'll mention it again; the viewpoints of the missions are primarily from inside the cockpits. There's almost no external footage of the spacecraft, and the few we get are either so close that we still feel like we're put in the thick of the action, or so monumental and beautiful, like the Apollo 11 launch as it reaches the clouds, and the Earth it's leaving behind.
First Man was a truly incredible experience. This is not a generic movie about the moon landing. This is a look at the life of Neil Armstrong in the years building up to it It's about his sacrifices and triumphs, his struggles both intellectually and emotionally, that all culminates in that iconic moment. Once the credits rolled my cinema screening was left in a stunned silence. No-one moved from their seats for a good couple of minutes. The sheer power and intensity of this movie was just so much to take in. Absolutely beautiful from the get-go, I give it a fantastic 9/10.