WHOA! This movie is a mind-blow.
Let
me start by saying that I am quite unfamiliar with the genre of science
fiction. When I read about this movie I didn't think, 'Oh what a cool
sci-fi this movie will be.' SO it was a surprise to me when during the
Q&A at the West Coast premiere of the movie at the SFIFF Sunday
night so many questions and answers had to do with the sci-fi genre
(themes borrowed from other movies, etc).
When I first started watching I immediately thought of Herzog's 'Grizzly Man' because of the perspective issue. We see astronaut Sam Bell ( Sam Rockwell)
talking to a camera (The U.S.) back home. SO I thought of the idea of
only being with yourself and the camera, the relationship formed there,
and the perspective of the camera. Timothy Treadwell was alone in the
wilderness with his camera, Sam is alone on the moon with a camera...
Well not completely alone. Kevin Spacey plays a robot friend.
Sam
Rockwell gives quite a performance. It turns out the movie was inspired
by him. Jones wanted to work with Rockwell, and Rockwell had ideas
about wanting to play a working class hero type...
The moon
setting is especially notable! I found myself wondering about why and
how they decided to make it look the way it did and how the set worked.
I learned during the Q&A it was built as a miniature model, and
that's probably why it looked so beautiful. Often we see Sam driving
the rover over the surface of the moon and it appears in slow motion,
moon dust filling the dark air, which is only lit by the out-of-place
man made machinery in outer space...
Whoa! Googling Duncan
Jones just now I found out from Wikipedia that he is the son of David
Bowie. Full circle. Last week at the SFIFF I watched Crude, in which David Bowie's wife and supermodel Iman Abdulmajid plays a key role in creating press buzz around a huge Chevron oil spill in Ecuador.
I'm
not going give away anything about this movie, but I will say that it's
soul-wrenchingly sad. About 3/4 way through I wanted to give up. At one
point Sam says, "I just want to go home." And then earth comes into
view.
But instead of giving up I became intrigued by the plot, and
started questioning my own sadness- curious about why I felt so sad by
this subject.
Sadness turned to curiosity.
Jones made the movie on a 5 million budget. and with only 30 days to shoot. 450 special effects shots. Damn!!!
Go see it. Be boggled.
Opens wide release June 12.
Bartlett Elisabeth 
