Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity hit me about as hard as any film ever has, for although this is one of the great technical achievements in cinematic history, Cuarón’s aesthetic accomplishments are employed to realize and empower a fundamentally simple – and extraordinarily profound – message about the significance of life in an existence where we are so utterly dwarfed by the scale of the cosmos. Sandra Bullock gives the performance of a lifetime as a first-time astronaut faced with the severest of physical and existential crisis, and for all the perfectly paced and flawlessly realized intensity she undergoes, it really is the emotional and thematic depth of her story that wound up breaking me by the end. It is rare to encounter a film that so beautifully encapsulates and reflects one’s own personal beliefs on life, or to feel such a strong personal connection with such a major commercial hit, but in its profound and innovative cinematic power, Gravity is both an extraordinary and ubiquitous masterpiece.
Gravity is now playing in theatres nationwide. Read my full review of the film here.
And the best film of 2013 is…
