Gravity review

I watched Gravity for a second time and it still remains on top of my list of favourite movies.

Alfonso Cuaron became my favourite director after I saw Children of Men for the first time. I really love his signature long shots and in and out perspective and they are really really difficult to shoot. Watching long shots triggers this sense of continual and audiences hardly have time to blink or space to breath. This movie took a total of 4 years to make, with many innovations in visual and technical aspects just to make this movie and hopefully it will set the benchmark for innovation in other movies.

The first shot was an incredible 15 minutes long with ever changing camera direction, which depletes the sense of directionless space, no right left up down, and different perspectives like zooming in and entering Ryan’s suit to feel what she’s feeling inside and then zooming out to feel the emptiness of soundless space. I love this “through glass” zooming, which is also one of his signature style (in Harry potter and Children of Men).

The movie has themes like birth (scene where Ryan was a baby in the womb of the ISS, with a tube symbolizing the umblical cord) and rebirth (Ryan came out of the waters and on the beach like an amphibian). The difference between the warm earth and darkness of space, the longing for earth and feeling of loneliness in the ISS window scene with Ryan’s reflection etc. 

The sound effects were also incredible in bringing the audience in line with what the characters are feeling (the drowning scene when Ryan reached Earth)

I really love the last scene of Ryan's landing, slowing transiting from weightlessness to weight in water then eventually full fledged gravity on the entire body and it all happened in the last few minutes of the film. So intense. Sandra Bullock's performance was excellent and I can't imagine the pain of all the puppet strings tied to her while she's filming all the floating scenes.