Review of First Man (2018) by Viniciusbrito — 19 Oct 2018

During the Cold War, there was the called "Space Race", wich was a race for technological and a symbolic superiority over the Soviet Union, and this race about technology was pretty much all about reaching the space, they started with satellites and probes, once that the USSR were in front during the beginning of the race, the USA decided to do something very daring, wich is send the man to the Moon for the first time, and one of the astronauts that did it, is the leading character in this movie, wich is Neil Armstrong. Neil Armstrong had a lot of troubles during his paternity and passing through several traumas, and in his professional he was always the most possible hardworking guy, so as the whole NASA, the failures and achieves that happened before the tough round trip to the Moon. Directed by Damien Chazelle and Written by Josh Singer.

While people are telling stories in movies or books, about things that actually happened, mostly of it will surely be true and have a lot of documented materials in it, but still there is a small margin for fiction as well, because you can't tell everything that happened during the course of the events, so in this, they do have friends and family of the true characters and by that they can take the most realistic and possible reaction in the script, I think that they were very successfulyy in this aspect. The story is told in a very calm way, telling a few details with it's time, this is more than anything, a story about the carreer and personal life of Neil Armstrong, seeing this, they did a good job in showing Neil traumas and difficulties inside his family because of what had happened to his daughter, they could show me in the story how much did he was concerned with her, I believed in what I was seeing, and I was caring about all of that, inside of his house and in his personal life, I completely bought every thing that was going on, the up and downs that was very well positioned and justified. During his job in NASA, I think that they did showed very well how hard that was, how many time did it tooked and how many failures they did had before achieving the goal, even that the story is a bit slow, I think that it was very according. They did good in showing how the people were seeing all of that effort, how some of them did not liked how the money was being spent. The interaction between the characters is also worthy to be mentioned here, Neil personality is very intro, while his friends and family was the contrary, so they had a contrast of personalities that gave to the movie another layer. The movie can make me have thoughts, this is surely a story about overcoming as well, how many wrong things have happened to the good emerge, "we have to fail here, to not fail up there", that is just wonderful.

The acting was very nice, Ryan Gosling could offer some very strong moments that could really reach me, moments of anghuis and helplessness, in a way that he couldn't really get anyone, in other moments his smile were so sincere that he did also convinced me of that, or even in other that his eyes got full dark, then I could see how angry or confuse he was, I just think that there are some moments that I couldn't feel much himself, like, when he finally arrives to the moon, he could, just maybe, have had more expressions, but in overall he was really good. Claire Foy did a very good job, mainly in the able of caring to the others, to her husband and primarily to his children, I truly believed in her words, or when she got mad or frustated. Corey Stoll was a bit of a counterpoint, he was very extrovert, so he did nice.

The cinematography of the movie is great, first the camera being positioned in first person during some sequences, that is fantastic because we can go to what the character is seing and possibly feeling in the best possible way, that helped me to immerse in the movie during the most inconvenient moments. Another great thing about it, was in other times, not necessary being in first person, but letting the camera in the capsula where the astronauts were, so we didn't saw the whole rocket, we saw how they were, how suddently everything starts to swing and shake in a tremendous speed and very claustrophobic, they were very happy in this choice, it's great to see at their point. There also camera situations where you see the Earth from the space, The Moon from Earth and the Earth froom Moon, all of them are just deliciously splendid.

The soundtrack is another phenomenal part in here, it not just illustrates the scene, but in some it makes it seems like an full art, when they mix the soundtrack and the cinematography it becomes an art of the most high level, it got beautiful, the sounds are a very classic rythim that worked out a lot in every single moment, it helped to got me hyped, in other moments to get me thoughtful, and in others just the lack of music was also a great moment to implicit something, something that don't needed any sound or track.