Love

Usually, I think a work of art should stand on it's own without the viewer every having to hear a single word from those behind the project. Because in the end, the real art is what we see, not what they see. But in the case of Love, I feel like the filmmakers' feedback turned me from just being okay with the movie, to loving the work they came up with.

Love is a film that was made, not to tell us a story, but to get us thinking about what it means to connect with another human being and how essential that connection is to survival. Our Space captain returns to a new International Space Station and after a few days of communication, he is cut off. Unbeknownst to him, the world below him has completely destroyed themselves.

As I said before, Love is about inspiring thought within the viewer more than it's about telling a linear story. Their story of connection and how little we mean to the rest of the universe is quite clear. The sparse writing involved isn't too preachy and doesn't give away all meaning, giving the audience a bit of work to do. Gunner Wright does a decent job of playing the lonely astronaut, although I wish we could have gotten a bit more emotion out of him at times.

The visuals of the film were fantastic. The ultra slow motion of the Civil War battle scene up to the spectacular visuals at the end of the film, these guys did an amazing job. Also, there is an intense sense of isolation and desperation going on. Routine becomes the only way our captain stays together, but it's obvious there is a thin string holding him.

There were just two problems I had with Love...one of which I immediately wrote off after the talk back. Certain portions of the film looked professional and absolutely amazing for an budgeted film. But there were aspects, such as the astronaut's joke of a space suit and the obvious wall of box fans oddly added to the space station. The space station itself was supposed to supersede our current one, but the interior still looked like it was from the 1970. There was also unexplained gravity. After the film, we learned it was made for $500,000. What a phenomenal job. The director talk about how he filmed the battle scene in his parent's backyard and built every aspect of the film himself just by going to Home Depot was ridiculously awesome. The Space Station was built in the driveway by him and his little bother. Still, a lot of those very distracting things could have been taken care of in the script. Instead of a new Space Station, make it the one we've used for years. Mention we discovered artificial gravity. But those were left out.

My other (and really only) problem was Love was full of thought, but no love. We have this guy in space that is completely alone for years and the only thing we see him do is lose track of his sanity at times. But we never see moments where he breaks down There are moments of him missing his family, but the filmmakers spend too much time with the mundane tasks of life in Space rather than the emotional journey he is going through.

Love was well worth the wait and I almost wish they could do the film again with more money and small changes in the script. But I would say if you can excuse a few budget problems, you're going to have a glorious time watching the movie.

I'd also recommend reading that Carl Sagan quote on Pale Blue Dot before hand. You'll see the film closer to the filmmakers if you do...

I encourage people to read the quote from Carl Sagan about the photo "Pale Blue Dot" before going to see the film.

I can't claim to have understood this film. It was very much like a mix between "Moon" and "2001: Space Odyssey". I sort of expected it to be more of a kind with the former, to be honest. I can't stand the latter. Anyway, the film was visually pleasing but I doubt I would have sat through it if not for the main actor. I also liked that they obviously didn't have the money for zero-gravity-simulation-shots but they did not let themselves be deterred by that and if you accept that there are no floating people on the ISS in this film, it's enough that they simply flipped the picture over in some shots to give the illusion of weightlessness. The story went over my head. I did not get the message at the end at all. What does all this have to do with love?! Anyway, Angel and Airwaves did well with the soundtrack. I think I'm going to listen to more of their music. So, this was a philosophical piece, almost as confusing as, but a lot more compact than Space Odyssey. Definitely Art-house material and not really suitable for light entertainment.

Maybe in 2039 an ISS will have gravity but I doubt that. I gave it a 5 as it was thought provoking but I don't know if he was seeing things in the end or if it was an explanation for everything before. On the other hand I have not written a review for ages so it did get to me and I think it should be seen by a wider audience and deserves better.

Typically I have a soft spot in my heart for Indie and low budget films. When I saw that this film had a decent user rating (at the time of this writing) I thought I might be in for a treat much as I was when I watched other great Sci-Fi Indie films such as "Moon", "Pandorum", "The Man from Earth", "Melancholia" and "Another Earth".

Sadly, I had to force myself to watch this through to its end, in the hope there would be something redeeming to justify the agony of watching what I had already put myself through. While I did not anticipate the "revelation" at the end, it certainly did not leave me whole.

Great films, even if only moderately good, take you on a ride of ups and downs… I am very sorry to say this was just plain boring and full of unnecessary scenes and shots.

Love (2011)

What a weird mixed bag of a movie. With a zinger of a misleading title.

Yes, okay, this ultimately is about what a man abandoned in the space station starts to think about--not sex (according to the movie) but love, some idealized love with a hot babe on a Malibu beach.

And oh yeah, this guy has dreams--or some kind of astral travel memories--of fighting heroically in the Civil War, surround by buff guys being equally heroic and doomed. Gradually the mental state of the one main character shifts and becomes unreliable, and dreams and daydreams become hallucinations, or perhaps some kind of actual revelation of another existence, and it gets surreal.

So the big picture is this is an overly simple movie with a couple well-worn ideas worn further and sometimes to the point of actually boredom. On that level, don't see it.

But, as is typical these days (in a good way), there are some visual and technical moments here that are amazing. Really amazing.

The first of these is a series of scenes of Civil War battles with really complex, layered, smoky, dusty clashes of men and bodies--in delicious slow motion. There's no point to these moments except the drama, but the drama is self-sufficient. They echo the best epic paintings of war of any kind.

And there are other moments with drawings that become moving pictures (again of the Civil War), and some general photography of that past era that works well. Plus the station itself is reasonably interesting, if a little awkwardly uncomfortable (compared to pictures I've seen of the real thing).

Which brings us to the final problem--there is no weightlessness. Almost the entire movie is this single man in an empty space station around Earth, and there would be zero gravity. Not a hint.

What should anyone make of all the derivative stuff here, mainly borrowing (appropriating, stealing?) from the fabulous "2001" and possibly the not-fabulous "Marooned," both from the late 1960s? I don't know. The ending here is an especially, painfully faint echo of Kubrick's great statement about the loneliness of the universe. And the slight romanticizing of this man's isolation (with his visions of a woman with lots of skin showing) reminds me of Soderbergh's romantic remake of "Solaris."

There are better movies about being lost in space.