Gravity... and such

Rating: 5/10 (13 May 2014)

Finally got to see Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón) and I have to admit – thinking it could be the thin line between a watery romantic comedy disaster in space because it stars Bullock and Clooney (for the first time on screen together, I frig you not) or just one decent watch frankly I was pleading with the nine gods for the latter – dying for the 'alone in space' realism pay-off
Glad to say, it really did hold its own. It was good, camera angles were incredible – the long shots were stirring – just a damn good, simple narrative.
Reading a recent Guardian interview, Bullock reported shooting for days on end in sheer loneliness – and while it's great an actor gives over a remarkable amount of dedication to a role (e.g. weight loss by McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club) and a for a crew to go through ridiculous hours' worth of preparation (e.g. each one twenty-fourth of a second of Avatar took 47 hours to render) – it still had me torn slightly.
Yes, all that time in a harness of frustration, staring at light boxes in a nine-foot cube of loneliness really impressed me and yes, the result is Zero-G physics which look incredibly impressive – plausible collisions, which are stunning  all those churning, swirling spins *boak* — oh, and the great use of fire in space – yes, yes, yes all extremely believable.
I can't say it enough, the attention to detail is remarkable; the silence, incredible; the camera shots; deadly But, and this is a but where I'm really splitting hairs but I do like the old fashion stories of 'how' Let me show you what I mean.
OK, so when I saw the initial long shot — all twelve minutes of it, (twelve minutes!) — that incredible pan from far space; right up to and in through Bullocks visor, sharing the insular sound of panicked breath and a sweet simplicity of confused vision; then out again through to another, long wide pan of the action from an incredibly complicated orbit – I was fecking impressed, but incredibly irritated I was dying to pause time; stalling all that crafted tension and find out how the hell they did it but I didn't, I lingered
It put me in mind of the incredible long shot in Robert Zemeckis' Contact – you remember the one? Jodie Foster's chronologically-disadvantaged self (Young Ellie – played by Jena Malone), discovers her dad (David Morse) in a poor state on the porch?
Well, as she panics and in one, long, continual, agonizingly slow-w-w-mo, runs in through the front door, up the stairs and turning the corner into the bathroom, only to open the camera angle to reveal a long one-shot medicine cabinet I know I described that a bit weird, far too many commas maybe, but y'know — wow and that wasn't even one of the space shots from Contact
And here's that 'how' I love — The crew had a medicine cabinet – attached to the camera from the outset — that whole shot up the stairs, that seamless turn from sadness into medication – the mirror of this medicine cabinet caught all of her shocking memory by the great use of the all-in-one-take-trauma until she finally opened the door to reveal his tablets so yeah, naturally I was incredibly interested to find out how Gravity had created twelve minutes of this and as I say – a little disappointed it was all digital only a little *twitch*
... more?
http://magnumvalentino.wordpress.com/2014/05/02/gravity-and-such/