Review of Gravity (2013) by Tim M — 30 Jun 2015

I was taken by the dual view points of the movie: the one with the human protagonist who experiences the grandeur, the trauma, the fear of being alone in Space and Time, the other is with the Space -- watching the imperturbable motions of heavenly bodies. Both views bring together both the awe and the horror of being human, the grandeur of space, the preciousness and bravery of individual consciousness. At one point, we hear the brief monologue of Ryan on whether someone would pray for her, and the fact that she never learnt how to pray.

In some ways, this reminds me of the other movie "Tree of Life". It seems that, even after a glamourous and successful careers, several serious actors (Sean Penn, George Clooney, Brad Pitt etc) have taken projects with less an eye for commercial success and perhaps even at the contempt of atheistic intellectuals. Perhaps they have also matured and turned toward their own spiritual yearnings. In the same medium of art, they have chosen, infrequently and often not in complete success, to contemplate the question of God vs. Men.