Stretched out but enjoyable

Rating: 7/10 (16 September 2018)

The Martian is a film about an astronaut, Mark Watney (Matt Damon), who is inadvertently left stranded on Mars. There was a very bad storm and the crew thinks that Mark died in the storm. They perform an emergency take off to get out of the storm and consequently Mark is left behind. With limited rations to keep himself alive, until he can be rescued, Mark must get created to survive. His role in the crew was as a botanist and it comes in handy for Mark's survival.
I believe there are two general themes in The Martian. First off, the isolation Mark has to endure while on Mars completely alone is a test in itself. Mark does not directly discuss the hardships of being alone but he displays several emotions surrounding the fact that he is alone and scared. For example, when he first makes contact with Earth and realizes they are aware of his survival he breaks down in tears of joy. Mark also copes with being alone by speaking to his diary camera and he using these to make jokes regarding his situation. The other theme of this movie is perseverance. The perseverance of Mark Watney is display in this film over and over again. One example of Mark's perseverance is when he realizes he does not have enough food rations to survive long enough to get rescued. Instead of giving up, Mark decides to pull together all of his scientific knowledge and figure out a solution. Mark gets very creative and finds a way to grow potatoes on Mars. During his process of discovering a process to grow potatoes, Mark nearly blows himself up and learned from this mistake. He perseveres through this mistake and keeps going on. Mark's persaverence reminds me of the strong perserverance of Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption where the never give up attitude is on display.
One scene where the director used visual techniques to interpret the action was when Mark was re-entering the Hab and it exploded. There was a small hole in the side of the airlock that caused a breach in the air pressure, resulting in an explosion. During this scene it rapidly switches from a first person view to a third person view. By shooting from the point of view of Mark, the director utilizes a subjective point of view in order to emotionally intensify the scene for the viewer. I believe this was a very effective way to shoot the scene because switching from third and first person makes the action more chaotic and intense for the viewer. This scene is another excellent example of Mark's perseverance because he could have just gave up and left the Hab in its wrecked condition. Instead Mark chose to repair it and continue his fight for survival.