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Jun. 3rd, 2015 02:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainoMusic from the very annoying movies Gravity and Interstellar is excellent for getting in a heroic and fatalistic mood (for writing). But as movies and especially scifi movies they were sorely disappointing. In fact the only sf movie I've seen in a few years, which gave me more than I had expectations for, has been Ex Machina. Oh, and also the John Carter of Mars movie, in all its charming boyish silliness and frank desire to entertain, although is it fantasy of scifi is bit of a undecided case.
(spoilers, spoilers, spoilers may be ahead)
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here goes.
Gravity was marketed as a so-hard-scifi-it's-almost-not-fiction-at-all near-space adventure, which it was for about 15 minutes of the total duration. I'm not saying it was entirely crappy, the danger scenes were fantastic. Coming out of the theatre I was however seething with feminist irritation: why, why, why must a movie about a woman in space not be an honest techno-thriller but a thinly veiled sappy tale of emotional growth only peppered with occasional clashing satellites? Well, along comes Interstellar, marketed as visionary tale of mankind's eternal quest for the stars. If Gravity was about motherhood after the death of a child*, then Interstellar was about the conflicting desires of a career-oriented father. OK, so you can send a man into deep space on a heroic mission to save mankind, and have the movie be about the too-busy-for-his-kids-daddy. So, my feminist irritation is replaced by general irritation. It is probably impossible to tell a story which is just a story, and I would not ask that even if it were possible, but please at least bury the human development messages a little deeper. Or then go make a drama movie and be open about it.
Of the two Gravity annoyed me more initially, but Interstellar bothered me in a more deep way. It is trying to be a movie about the universal importance of love, but the characters seem to be incapable of even empathy beyond immediate bonds of blood or sex. The true message is monstrous: humans truly do not nor can not care about anyone but those of their own bloodline or sex partner. If it were true, which history and even daily life proves it is not, mankind could go to hell and not deserve to be saved. We would be lesser creatures than insects, only vehicles of DNA and not human in the meaningful sense of the word, if the bleak vision of the movie was true. Thank heavens it is not.
* and how I despise the inspirational message of the movie! Just grab yourself by the neck and keep going, even if the worst, the unthinkable, the end of the world has happened! Certainly people losing their children are entitled to extended and even irrational grief, hollywood be damned.
(spoilers, spoilers, spoilers may be ahead)
****
++++
----
,,,,
....
here goes.
Gravity was marketed as a so-hard-scifi-it's-almost-not-fiction-at-all near-space adventure, which it was for about 15 minutes of the total duration. I'm not saying it was entirely crappy, the danger scenes were fantastic. Coming out of the theatre I was however seething with feminist irritation: why, why, why must a movie about a woman in space not be an honest techno-thriller but a thinly veiled sappy tale of emotional growth only peppered with occasional clashing satellites? Well, along comes Interstellar, marketed as visionary tale of mankind's eternal quest for the stars. If Gravity was about motherhood after the death of a child*, then Interstellar was about the conflicting desires of a career-oriented father. OK, so you can send a man into deep space on a heroic mission to save mankind, and have the movie be about the too-busy-for-his-kids-daddy. So, my feminist irritation is replaced by general irritation. It is probably impossible to tell a story which is just a story, and I would not ask that even if it were possible, but please at least bury the human development messages a little deeper. Or then go make a drama movie and be open about it.
Of the two Gravity annoyed me more initially, but Interstellar bothered me in a more deep way. It is trying to be a movie about the universal importance of love, but the characters seem to be incapable of even empathy beyond immediate bonds of blood or sex. The true message is monstrous: humans truly do not nor can not care about anyone but those of their own bloodline or sex partner. If it were true, which history and even daily life proves it is not, mankind could go to hell and not deserve to be saved. We would be lesser creatures than insects, only vehicles of DNA and not human in the meaningful sense of the word, if the bleak vision of the movie was true. Thank heavens it is not.
* and how I despise the inspirational message of the movie! Just grab yourself by the neck and keep going, even if the worst, the unthinkable, the end of the world has happened! Certainly people losing their children are entitled to extended and even irrational grief, hollywood be damned.
