Chris Knipp Writing: Movies, Politics, Art


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 08, 2013 12:28 pm 
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ROBERT REDFORD IN ALL IS LOST

A sacrament of survival

The only appropriate thing to say about J.C. Chandor's highly original and brilliantly executed second feature is nothing, because it is wordless, or nearly so. It follows someone for days in a life and death struggle who hardly speaks at all. Our Man (Robert Redford) has gone away at sea in a nearly new, well-fitted 39-foot sailing yacht, far off in the Indian Ocean, adrift 1,700 nautical miles from the nearest land. He has left family behind. We hear a letter he wrote to them in voice over at first. "All is lost." He feels he has failed them. So he has gone. That's all we know, no back story, no details. Only the action. Which is dire, beginning at once. As he wakes up, a container that has fallen off a cargo ship, filled with running shoes, has just floated into the boat, and punctured it. It is filling with water. The boat has lost GPS, electronics, communications. The radio works after a while, but only for a few minutes. Our Man's SOS probably goes astray. He patches the hold. He saves what he can. He is becalmed. Then, a big storm comes. Then other things. This is a story of survival. It's like Beckett, without the words. This is a kind of pure cinema.

It is not silent. The sound design is interesting, rich, and important. Unfortunately, the filmmakers, like those behind Gravity, another current survival film of merit, set in space, forget that where their character is there are no string orchestras. It's not as bad as in Cuarón's film, but at times the music is obtrusive, and certainly unnecessary.

The screenplay reportedly is thirty pages long. It would be interesting to see it. Obviously, there is no dialogue. Redford has said that he admired how specific it was. As Our Man, he must perform a multitude of tasks and go through a multitude of motions, rather than "act." His expression is neutral. Our Man is a good sailor, strong and adept for his age (Redford is 77), though not extraordinary. He reacts, he improvises. He does what he knows how to do. When the storm redoubles its efforts, the boat is beginning to sink. He has the life raft, the survival kit. He uses them. Floating out in the life raft he uses a map and instructions and a sextant, and relies on currants to sail into a shipping lane where he hopes to flag down a passing vessel. But when that doesn't succeed, it appears that all is indeed well and truly lost.

The beauty of All Is Lost is that you're wholly caught up in the action. At least it offers that opportunity to you. We live in an age of rampant inattention, and in front of me as I watched in the crowded cinema there was a man who regularly lighted his electronic device to check the time. Evidently he had somewhere more interesting to be. I did not. I relate well to pure visceral adventures. Think 127 Hours, only with a lot more going on, the deep sea below, a school of pilot fish, sharks circling, and the need to make drinkable water. But this is just as intimate and physical. Eventually Our Man, whom we've only heard reading the letter sent before he set sail, and briefly sending the futile SOS, throws his head back in the life raft and yells "FUUUUUUUUK!" And you know what he means.

Editing is fast and seamless. When Our Man climbs the mast, the camera moves around him, catching him from different angles. But it never seems self-conscious. If you are paying attention, you just don't think about it. And you don't think about Redford. Redford is the vessel for the action, no pun intended. He doesn't get in the way. He is like somebody performing a Japanese tea ceremony. A sacrament of survival. With his debut, Margin Call, Chandor made the best movie about Wall Street. Now he has made this. Is every movie he makes going to be the best of its kind?

All Is Lost, 106 mins., debuted at Cannes 22 May 2013, and has been shown at other international festivals, including New York, at Lincoln Center, where it was screened for this review. Release date US 18 Oct., UK 26 Dec. Metacritic rating: 87%.

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Chandor and Redford at NYFF P&I Q&A

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.


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