The first thing we see in Gravity is Earth, surrounded by
space. Slowly, as the camera floats forward, we make out a white space shuttle gliding
through the blackness, and then we see human figures attending to that
machinery. The camera continues to move forward, above and below these
astronauts, circling them as they work. Of the three people at work, we are
quickly introduced to two – Dr Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is diligent but
anxious as she carries out her first task in space, while her veteran colleague
Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) happily cracks wise and enjoys the view,
cherishing his final moments in space before retirement. It appears to be a
routine mission, but Stone and Kowalski are in for a rude awakening as a storm
of debris comes hurtling towards them, destroying their craft, killing their crew and severing
their connection from each other, with a panicked Stone hurtling out into the
endless darkness.
All of this happens in Gravity's remarkable opening shot. While
the vast majority of what we see on screen at any point during the film has
been generated inside a computer, what's most impressive about Gravity is how
immediately real and organic it feels. Alfonso Cuarón and his regular
cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki have created an entirely convincing
environment and they use these opening minutes to pull us into it, to immerse
us in a situation where up and down no longer have any meaning. Lubezki's
camera has the freedom to move around Bullock and Clooney, viewing them from
all conceivable angles, and even at one point passing through Bullock's visor
to position us inside her claustrophobic helmet, where all we can hear is the
sound of her rapid, nervous breathing. (The sound design matches – even surpasses
– the film's visual achievement, although Steven Price's score sometimes gets
in the way of our appreciation.)
All in all, Gravity is a technical tour de force. The last
film that Cuarón and Lubezki collaborated on was 2006's Children of Men, which
was similarly elevated by their bold and innovative camerawork, but the
addition of cutting-edge effects work and a third dimension has allowed them to
push their ideas even further. The film constantly plays with our sense of
scale, isolating its characters against the vast emptiness that surrounds them,
before rapidly bringing us into close quarters with them as they collide with
one another, or crash into a satellite and desperately try to grab something,
to avoid being carried by their momentum away from salvation. Bullock spends
much of the film being tossed against objects like a rag doll, unable to arrest
her inexorable fall, but the physics involved in her movements all feel incredibly
convincing. The filmmakers' exacting verisimilitude in their depiction of space
and Lubezki's dynamic camerawork makes Gravity an extraordinarily visceral
experience.
While the visual work pushes at the boundaries, however, the
story that Cuarón and his son Jonás (who has directed a short companion piece,
entitled Aningaaq)have chosen to tell is very traditional, even quaint. From
the minute that Dr Stone finds herself lost in space, the film becomes a very
straightforward tale of survival, with Stone having to find a way to get from A
to B, negotiating an ever-escalating series of obstacles and disasters as she
does so. In case that sounds too slight for a feature, the Cuaróns have given
Dr Stone a backstory. We learn that her daughter died some years previously,
and that Stone has been drifting aimlessly through life ever since. It's an unabashedly
corny device, and the symbolic gestures that the Cuaróns use to present the
story as a metaphor for overcoming grief and reconnecting with life can be a
little on-the-nose, but they get away with it. Given the disorientating manner
of the viewing experience, the straightforward simplicity of the screenplay
actually works in the film's favour, and Bullock brings a raw emotion to her
performance that grounds the film in a recognisable, relatable reality. The
sight of a tear emerging from her eye and floating away rather than rolling
down her cheek might seem like a gimmicky 3D trick, but there's no doubting the
source of those tears.
Whether Gravity will stand up to repeated viewings, once the
sense of excitement and awe has faded away, is open to debate. It doesn't feel
anywhere near as resonant as Children of Men, and I suspect that the
shortcomings occasionally displayed in the writing may become more of an issue
over time. None of that matters now, though. Gravity thrilled and gripped me in
a way that few recent films have managed to do, and I certainly can't recall
the last major effects-driven studio blockbuster that has had such an impact on
me (or the last such film to get its business done in a mere 90 minutes). It is
one hell of a ride, and its flaws seem entirely meaningless as I gazed in
wonderment at the remarkable images Cuarón and Lubezki had produced. These two constitute one of the most exciting partnerships working in contemporary cinema – who could
resist the opportunity to watch them reaching for the stars?