gravitas & gravity

there i was. fuming like mad for a day gone sour. as if going along with my mood, the weather had gone gloomy as well. the otherwise sunny day suddenly turned bleak, with threats of rain. i felt even worse because i did not have an umbrella with me.
luckily, i made it to the mall before the rain blanketed the city with its fury. after dropping by my favourite chapel, i roamed around, unsure of what to do next and where to go. i ended up at the cinema. why not? i thought. movies always cheer me up. but the problem is, there was only one movie that was about to start when i was already at the ticket counter.
gravity. i took a deep breath, closed my eyes and counted to three. if the world would not end at the count of three, then i would watch it.
it did not. 

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i wasn't interested in watching gravity even if i am an avid fan of its director, the versatile alfonso cuaron who gave us, among others, such diverse movies as y tu mama tambien, which introduced the then ravishing and promising gael garcia bernal into our consciousness. it remains a favourite until now (the movie, not gael); the delightful a little princess; the superb but poignant pan's labyrinth; the totally unexpected great expectations; an installment in the scary harry potter series.
the thing is, i love that he is able to work in different genres -- drama, love story, horror, fairy tale, action -- and still gives out his best every time.
but gravity is something else.
first of all, i am not a fan of science.  from the poster, i could tell it's all about science, outer space, astronauts. then i have a fear of heights. so any movie about scientists, astronauts, and especially with scenes, lots of scenes, showing them orbiting in space as though they are riding a ferris wheel gone awry is a no no for me. i always feel like i am the one who is falling into a black hole.
the feeling is akin to asking a vegetarian to try the latest version of pork or chicken adobo (a favourite filipino dish) being concocted in the hip restaurants in new york. poor metaphor. i know.
then there are the actors: george clooney and sandra bullock. there is just no chemistry between the two of them. i like george, especially his sense of humour; but sandra? i like her a lot in speed, but when she was repackaged into another julia roberts wannabe and was paired off with hugh grant, keanu reeves, ryan reynolds in romantic dramas or the more popular romantic comedies, she lost me. honestly, sandra has no romantic chemistry with anybody. she is bland. walang kilig. walang excitement. unlike say angelina jolie or nicole kidman or gwyneth paltrow or even julia!

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but after a horrific day (a press conference in the far, far away kingdom of quezon city was moved to a later date and i was not informed. this after i woke up quite early, skipped breakfast just to make it to the event on time and spent a lot on taxi fare!), i decided i needed a break. some cheering. to forget about the unfortunate incident. so i went straight to greenbelt from the city of the stars quezon city. being inside a mall always relaxes me. soothe my nerves. on the way to greenbelt,  i spent nearly three hours on the biggest parking lot on earth that is edsa. (a part of me blamed myself: why didn't you take the mtr? why didn't you call the pr first before going to the press con?)
when i reached greenbelt cinema, the only movie that i could watch that has not started yet was, you guess it right, gravity. the others had started already, while the rest would be showing in one to two hours later. what the heck, i thought, if i get bored, then i would just go to sleep.
"to die, to sleep. to sleep? perchance to dream.." comes to mind as i was choosing the seat at the counter. it took me a while because most seats were taken.

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to my surprise, i like the movie. it's not as super engrossing as a christopher nolan masterpiece. it's nowhere near alfonso's previous outings, but it's riveting. its silence, and there's a lot, is pure bliss.
credit it to alfonso cuaron's unique style of film making that i found the movie enjoyable, edgy, suspenseful, interesting and surprisingly, sad.
the movie had me right from the start. sandra didn't even have to say hello!
for the firs time since speed, i like sandra again. i can totally relate to her character.
without much drama and without sounding like an asshole who thinks that everything revolves around him like the sun in the solar system, i feel sandra's character, ryan, in the film. what she's going through.
(warning. some spoilers follow that could ruin  your viewing pleasure. my apologies.)
ryan just lost her only child. she learned about her daughter's accident and death while she was driving. unable to help her. she felt guilty, of course, not being around her when she needed her most. so she took the job working in space because she felt it would help keep her mind away from herself, from the noises that had become her life on earth. she thought it would help her heal. move on. she was, in other words, vulnerable. raw. still hurting.
that's why when the accident in the outer space happened, she easily gave up all hopes of surviving. at some point, she wanted to die. was ready to die. until george came along. (this scene, her conversation with matt, george clooney's character, is one of the best.)
but george, glorious, still gorgeous, fabulous george, bless his playboy, ageing soul, who plays an astronaut named matt, cheered ryan up. he quizzed her about her life, about her home town, just to distract her, to keep her mind away from death. just to make her forget about the dangers that lay ahead as they try to navigate the great unknown. his sense of humour, charm, words of encouragement were the fuel that fired up ryan's sagging, hopeless spirit.
just when she was about to give up, matt appeared to urge her to go on. to stand again on her own two feet on earth. (they were floating in space. like babies inside a mother's womb. an apt metaphor. as we learned from biology, there is no gravity in space, so everything, including humans, just float.)

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and so. going back to myself. (insert evil grin here)
right now, i am at my lowest point. when i feel as though i have made and i am doing all the wrong decisions lately. that my timing is off. that my luck is running out. i am at a point when my will to keep on going is so weak that sometimes i don't feel like rising from bed anymore. sometimes, i wish i were a vampire in anne rice's novels so i could just bury myself beneath the cold, damp, loving earth and sleep for centuries. then when i am strong again, when my wounds have healed, i could just shoot up into the air like an exploding natural gas buried underneath the grounds for centuries and be alive again. hungry. eager. quivering with anticipation for fresh blood. ready to hunt. ready to live again.
sorry, i am being dramatic here.
but that's the point i am trying to make. the connection that i am trying to establish.
just like sandra's character in the movie, i want to just give it all up, pack my things, go home, stay at my parents' house. hide under my mother's protecting arms. yes, there are days when it gets really bad and today when i watched the movie was no different. being told that there was no press conference after spending hours on the road and being trapped in a horrendous traffic just made it worse.
that's why when george's character, matt, was cheering ryan up as though he was a coach to her losing boxer, i felt as though he was actually talking to me. strange. i felt as though somebody had indeed pushed me to watch the film so that my dwindling energy would be revived.
happily, it did.
yes, the film has become a very personal experience -- it was like watching myself on the big screen, even if it was sandra bullock and not julia roberts essaying the role whom i felt deeply attached into.

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i won't tell you what happened to ryan. or to matt. suffice it to say that the movie is a triumph of the human spirit. of man's strong will to survive. i also love the metaphor about being born again. that after swimming in space like a fetus in her mother's womb, ryan springs back to life. after a near-death experience, she saw the glorious day full of life. that after a tumultuous and seemingly endless journey into the darkness, into a sea of uncertainty, there she is again. standing up.

(i was thinking of the sperms as they rushed to meet the egg cells while watching that scene where the wreckage of the space ships, one of them containing ryan, were falling to earth.)

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for such a very simple movie bereft of thunderous explosions and expensive action scenes common in summer blockbusters, where the dialogues are economical, where nothing much happened, really, the film is able to say a lot. or maybe that's just the depressed me taking it all in?
have a lovely weekend ahead ladies, princesses, queens, wannabes, fairies, bitches and witches!