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Suparn Verma, who last directed the Bipasha Basu-starrer Aatma, reviews Gravity in a single sentence as a tribute to the greatest single take sequence in cinematic history.
We space out the review for easy reading.
Director Alfonso Cuaron’s has a remarkable filmography starting with
the Dickens adaptation of Great Expectations,
the brilliant Y Tu Mama Tambien,
the best Harry Potter film in the series,
the terrifying and thrilling Children of Men which was the last film he made six years ago
because since then he has been working on his latest film Gravity
which takes everything he has ever done
and then he not just reinvents his own oeuvre but also the very language of cinematic story telling
because as the film unfolds and if you jolt yourself out off the captivating narrative you will realise that you are 17 minutes into the film
and you have been watching a single take so brilliantly orchestrated that for a moment you wouldn’t be wrong in saying that this is the greatest choreography of
actors,
camera,
lightning,
camerawork,
VFX
all being conducted in absolute sync with the vision of the director
who had decided he wanted ‘incredibly long shots’
which he first started in his last film Children of Men
and we have seen Spielberg create superb long shots in War of the Worlds and the MOCAP animated film The Adventures of Tintin,
director Joe Wright had one such sequence in Atonement,
Russian director Alexander Sukurov made Russian Ark using a single 96- minute Steadicam sequence
and each of these scenes are remarkable achievements but they all dwarf under this incredible vision portrayed in Gravity
where Cauron used 3-D to the best effect possible creating a narrative so immersive that your jaw is open half the time wondering ‘how did he do that’
and it is not as if these are moments but the entire length of the film leaves you wonderstruck at the genius of this man and his vision so ably carried out by his brilliant team
about whom director Rian Johnson (Looper) tweeted ‘I had no idea what 80 percent of the jobs in the end credits were’
and I would urge you to wait and watch the end credits and you will see departments handling robots
and just the rigging department list is half a mile long which isn’t surprising considering the kind of immense work gone into this film
where the actors Sandra Bullock and George Clooney – please note this film only has two actors – hold your attention
along with the greatest production design created by God and replicated by Andy Nicolson and an army of VFX giants
and lit up and shot with such ingenuity by the films director of photography the genius Emmanuel Lubezki -- who I am sure has invented enough rigs and lightning equipment which will be used over the next decade –
the other man Cauron partners with is his co-editor Mark Sanger and they create this ride after a point you just give up trying to figure out where one shot ends and when the other begins
or even bother to figure out how did they manage to do what just happened
and sit back enjoying the narrative of Sandra Bullock, a medical engineer cut lose in space and trying to make her way back to Earth with the help of astronaut Clooney,
and this is all I will tell you about the story which is best enjoyed spoiler free
in fact I would suggest don’t even watch the trailer and just go watch this film
but since it isn’t possible to do that in this day and age
luckily for us the makers have cut the trailer from the first few minutes of the film which is a blessing at a time when producers end up showcasing the whole film in two minutes flat
so armed with minimal information this Sandra Bullock starrer has the actress in prime form supporting the film in an absolutely unabashed way
because the film creates claustrophobia not just in closed spaces of her helmet or the space pod but just the sight of a human being floating in endless space with no end in sight
a blip on the screen
and the distant sound of her breathing
which gets louder and louder
as she comes closer to the camera
and you realise the way sound has been used in this film
because space has no sound
so a majority of the times all we have are the sound of the actors breathing all heard through their head gear
but every now and then the sound mixers up Steven Price’s superb score drawing you into the terrifying emotions being conveyed on screen
which if you can manage then make sure you catch the IMAX 3D experience
because some films are meant for the big screen
and Gravity is that film.
Rediff Rating: 