영화 'Interstellar' (2014) directed by Chris Nolan - Review

[Poincare]

Chris Nolan's much anticipated, hyped 'Interstellar' finally hit the streets of Hollywood and virtually everywhere in the world. It is Nolan's biggest cinematic gamble, but thanks to his status as one of the most popular filmmakers Hollywood has ever produced, as everyone knows him as the producer/director of the beloved Batman trilogy, the movie thus far is selling extremely well worldwide. At the current pace, it may turn out to be the most commercially successful film in the recent years.

As expected, 'Interstellar' is big in ideas and ambitions, something only the likes of Nolan himself, Terrence Malick or Paul Thomas Anderson could have conceived and dreamed of materializing. Indeed, with the sole exception of Robert Wise's 'Star Trek: the Motion Picture' (1979) this is the first film since Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey' (1968) that depicts mankind's space travel in such an epic scale and grandeur (some may call it pompousness). There are ample scenes in this beautifully crafted space saga that will awe, startle, and amuse Sci-Fi fans; a spacecraft sailing across the vast universe with countless stars and planets shining in the background, planets orbiting around a deadly black hole mysteriously lit via Gravitational Lensing Effect, a glide over the surface of an icy planet with a spectacular bird's eyes' view. All the breathtaking sequences lasting for nearly three hours for your entertainment at the price of one movie ticket!

Alas, Nolan's execution of the big ideas comes surprisingly short. First, the scenario has holes and a few bumps. Much owed to Kubrick's 2001 Nolan and his brother work very hard to come up with something newer, fresher, but the script still follows too closely the old master's storyline; the wormhole near Saturn is a replica of the black monolith of 2001 orbiting Jupiter (did you know the monolith was originally supposed to be around Saturn? Read Arthur C. Clarke's novel), the US astronaut returning home through the black hole is a substitution of Dr. David Bowman coming back home as the Star Child, etc. In a clumsy attempt to add new materials in the plot, they insert subplots (two astronauts wrestling each other on the remote planet!) and introduce secondary figures (a scientist stranded on a planet played by the wooden and stiff Matt Damon), but they disrupt the flow and credibility of the story, rather than fortifying and enriching it. For a Sci-Fi movie of this depth and wealth of materials, we expected to see a hefty dose of Physics lessons covered in the first one third of the running time. Regrettably, the director doesn't provide it and shortly after laying out a character development of the main hero (wonderfully played by Matthew McConaughey), a retired former elite pilot, and his brief encounter with NASA scientists, is content to jump to the space sequences without much exposition of what has been going on and what their plan is at NASA for the future of Earth.

Worse still, Nolan, well known for his penchant for the stark visual style and creating unique atmospheres through the visual, sound, and directing, stumbles quite often; many of his scenes, no matter how well done with the exotic sets of the spacecraft and spectacular special effects, feel strangely anonymous. They might as well have been directed by someone else, not himself.

Fortunately, in the final chapter of the film Nolan manages to return to his normal mode as the visionary filmmaker. You may call it ‘When Inception meets with Quantum Entanglement.”! Here is a truly imaginative and creative cinematic idea that really works – how can we have the sympathetic and homesick astronaut return home across the galaxies, through the black hole, safely in one piece? Ah, it doesn’t sound all that easy, so he must pay a significant price for it, i.e. TIME!

How to sum up? Chris Nolan’s hugely ambitious space saga pays a great tribute to the idea of space journey and exploration and for that we must give him a hearty congratulations and thanks. It may and should rekindle an interest in the subject among the scientists and NASA management, much enough for them to reconsider and reexamine their space exploration plan in the future. But as a pure cinema the film is far from being subtle, let alone accomplished, and displays little confidence in the execution department. It is for much of its time devoid of the sense of mystery, wonder, terror, and the elements of hallucination and schizophrenia, all of which made Kubrick's masterpiece so powerfully efficient. Coming from one of the most commercially and artistically successful directors of our time, it comes across as a grave disappointment. I for one certainly felt that way while seating in the IMAX theater. In other words, ‘Interstellar’ is not among Nolan’s finest films. Still, it is a massively entertaining saga of men on the brink of extinction and beginning a brave journey into the far side of galaxies and for that it must please many of the moviegoers.

by Poincare

[하늘나리]

아이맥스에서 보셨네요.
저역시 보면서 2001: 스페이스 오딧세이 가 생각나더군요. 영화보다는 소설을 읽을 때 상상력이 더 발휘되는 쪽이라 소설쪽이 더 기억에 남아요.
SF 마니아인 제가 예매하고 시아버님과 애들과 삼대가 모여서 아이맥스에서 봤는데. 모두 멋진 작품이라시더군요.
세시간이 한시간처럼 훌쩍 지났어요.
애들과 같이 봐도 좋은 영화였어요.

[Poincare]

재밋게 보셨다니 다행이군요. 놀란의 기준으로 보통이라면 다른 감독들의 기준으로는 상이겠지요. 단지 그의 최고작품은 못된다는것, 그리고 Interstellar이전의 더 뛰어난 공상과학영화들이 과거에 나왔다는것을 모르는채 이 영화에만 열광하는 젊은 영화관객층들이 안돼 보입니다. 고전을 외면한체 문학을 논할수 없듯이, 영화예술도 옛작품들에 대하서는 문외한이면서 최근에 나온 화제작들에만 몰두/열광하는 현세태가 안따까울 뿐입니다.

[pure]

그럼 놀란의 최고 작품은 무엇이라고 생각하세요? 저는 다크나이트가 그의 최고작품이라고 생각합니다만....

[Poincare]

넵! Dark Knight & Inception.

[Karajan]

다크나이트, 인셉션 모두 인상깊은 영화들이죠. 아직 인터스텔라를 보기 전이니 놀란의 최고작은 다크나이트를 꼽고 싶네요.ㅎㅎ
저는 인셉션을 케이블에서 두 번인가 봤는데 내용이 어려워서 아직도 이해되지 않는 부분들이 있더라고요.ㅎㅎㅎ