Interstellar
Directed by:
Christopher NolanCinematography:
Hoyte van HoytemaComposer:
Hans ZimmerCast:
Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Matt Damon, Mackenzie Foy, Wes Bentley, David Gyasi, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, John Lithgow (more)VOD (5)
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From director Christopher Nolan comes the story of a team of pioneers undertaking the most important mission in human history. Matthew McConaughey stars as ex-pilot-turned-farmer Cooper, who must leave his family and a foundering Earth behind to lead an expedition travelling beyond this galaxy to discover whether mankind has a future among the stars. (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment)
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Are you one of those who wished Chris Nolan’s movies were not so (seemingly) free of emotions? Well, you know what they say ... Be careful what you wish for, it could come true. Because more than anything else, Interstellar acts as Nolan's sincere response to the above complaint. It's just an effort that is more wanted and forcibly pushed than naturally arising from the story and the characters. At the same time, for a long time (which, given the footage, really means for a very long time), nicely rational (and it is evident where this systematic analogy to Kubrick's 2001 comes from), but it turns into a variation on the Frequency viewed by Spielberg family perspective. However, if, after all, you really want to look for an analogy, then it clearly call for the Contact that also ruined its rational level at the end, although not as literal as Interstellar (what is strange is that on the one hand it is so cheaply literal and yet you can read between the lines, how and what was achieved for humanity during the ending scene). You either get over it or not. I did mainly thanks to the fact that the very first dialog of the daughter in the whole film will clearly determine where from and what point will follow. However, if nothing else, the once-in-a-lifetime audiovisual impression (especially in IMAX) of a pioneering journey into the unknown, which is breathtaking all the time, if not in terms of emotions than at least in terms of what the movie shows. In addition, it is one of the few orthodox big-budget science fiction, where during most of the footage the science, not the fiction is being emphasized, as we can typically see. And that means a lot, if on top of that it is quite likely that you will enjoy it even in terms of emotions.
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Spoilers ahead. McConaughey’s cowboy longing to discover the unknown heads out into space not only to gain knowledge (mainly of himself), but also in pursuit of the same goal that the first American settlers (and protagonists of the first sci-fi movies) had – to uncover the unknown and to colonise distant lands. Interstellar dusts off Americans’ mythological presentation of themselves as those who bring their enterprising spirit and common sense to bear in establishing civilisational order wherever there are acceptable conditions for such an endeavour. Here the crossing of frontiers (and horizons) is far more spectacular than in westerns, because instead of nature, one has to contend with technology and space (this is foreshadowed in the exposition, when the characters corral an out-of-control drone instead of wild horses). Victory is not a matter of one side defeating the other, but of establishing a harmonious union between man and space. ___ If the transfer of the founding American mythology into interstellar space offers a broad range of interpretations with respect to the current state of America’s self-confidence as a nation, the narrative enhancement inspires both awe and embarrassment. The complicated narrative structure involves a rather simple story in which everything is carefully told and fully explained (unlike the less materialistic films of Tarkovsky and Malick, which remain broadly open to interpretation). The excessive complexity of the ways in which the characters are led to their goal and the ways that they are given information creates a false impression of sophistication. The complexity of the form is somewhat counterproductive in light of the parallel effort to achieve maximum clarity and comprehensibility. The film devotes too much space to explaining itself to us. The Nolan brothers’ primary interest in structure has the consequences of clumsily written characters and their utilitarian usage. They are merely pieces of a bigger puzzle. They do not exist outside of their place in the structure. ___ But as a dispassionate designer who masterfully uses motifs from myriad sci-fi movies and books (Armageddon, Contact, The Abyss, Close Encounters of the Third Kind), Nolan has few equals. When he begins to build one of the major scenes, subtly at first and gradually with more and more intensity, it is like listening to a symphony with perfectly tuned and orchestrated instruments. He doesn’t need to resort to his favourite parallel montage technique – on the watery planet, the ticking of the watch incorporated into the music is enough to connect the two storylines. This scene develops the central motif of time, most strikingly illustrated by the mother ship Endurance, whose circular structure with twelve capsules is reminiscent of an analogue clock. The concept of time itself determines the direction and dynamics of the narrative. Time is a source of most of the narrative conflicts. It serves as a substitute for “evil” in a more tangible form, which is what a more conventionally structured narrative would fall back on. The good characters struggle with it; the bad ones succumb to it (Dr. Mann goes mad). Only bringing time under control brings victory in the end. ___ However breathtaking the long build-up to the climax and its slow subsidence may be, we are presented with the question of whether it justifies the complicated narrative structure with the dilation of time, wormholes and black holes. Because the film cannot conceal the fact that Nolan designed everything in relation to this connecting sequence. Not because of grand ideas and carefully depicted characters, but only for the joy of engineering it. The great films of world cinema that we now consider classics offer more than just perfect structure. 85%
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This movie is as if Nikola Tesla opened up one of his Pandora boxes. I wouldn’t have understood a single thing, but I would have been absolutely fascinated by it. And now if you excuse me, I think I may have to spend the rest of my life studying all available theories about the universe, black holes and fifth dimensions.
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An attempt at metaphysical art for 165 million, which tells the story of the fate and the essence of humanity, and humanity as such... and as a result falters due to its strongly rhetorical nature, and the fact that Nolan once again pulls his characters like automatons in a precisely constructed mechanism. With the exception of McConaughey, who, in his current form, could find emotion even in a piece of plastic, this is an astronomical clock of talking schemes and dialectic hangers (the marching suits feel a much more human than all the often crying characters). I don't want to be fully on the side of the haters - Interstellar has many. I enjoy a number of things in this authorial vision - the contemporary "pre-apo" skepticism balanced by idealism, a raw view of interstellar flights as a traumatic phenomenon, and work with space and the elements. It is also unbelievable how Hoyte Van Hoytema got moving the once immobile IMAX camera into a flexible multi-string instrument that evokes in some places the inner filming of Emmanuel Lubezki. Paradoxically, the height and width of the frame are used to create an intimate impression, perhaps even more often than to achieve a wow effect from the wholes. A faded look at a dusty future, a meditation on parents becoming the spirits of the future of their offspring at the time of their offspring's birth, and a few other things touched me. But as a whole, Interstellar reminds me of a combination of spectacular themes and motifs that fails to create what is not directly stated at the same time. And this is a bit of a problem for a film that deals with phenomena on the periphery of our rational perception of the world. For me, it's simply the type of spectacle for which the truly captivating part will be the bonuses from the production. [70%]
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As if Christopher Nolan was filming more from himself than ever before. He was already indulging in the smartest twists and tricks in the plot and narrative with The Prestige or Inception, but here he genuinely experiences his omnipresent fear for his family every minute, engraving it into every passionate monologue by Matthew McConaughey and building all the twists around it. It is not easy to accept that this time, too, the driving force behind the universe (occasionally even literally) are his own desires and regrets. But thanks to that, Interstellar soars through drama, ecology, wormholes, water, and ice with Hans Zimmer's organs on its back, aiming for a subjectively absolute rating that has no equal. Because I now have greater respect for distant stars than ever before and at the same time, I would give anything to be even a step closer to them.
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