Interstellar

cinema, Interstellar (2014) film

Christopher Nolan has made a name for himself for making films that don't rely on explosions, fist fights and chases, and for giving us proper stories, not narrative connections bridging the action scenes: giving us something to think about. Yet he also frequently manages to give us the ride expected of visiting the cinema, and doesn't preclude the use of explosions, fist fights and chases if they serve the story and are entertaining. He's not likely to make a film set in one room to bombard us with philosophical ideas because he seems to enjoy the scale and visual potential of the medium. Not to say a film in a room can't work - watch '12 Angry Men' to see it compellingly done. But he likes to mine all the streams of filmmaking in order to give us a complete production, from visuals to sound, colour to scale, and 'Interstellar' is no different. And, like first flipping open the cover of a classic book you've never read, it's best to experience it with as little foreknowledge as possible. I went in with a slight vision of what it might be about, it's hard to avoid every scrap of advance data that rains down on you like a vast wave: I knew it was about a catastrophe for the Earth that had to be averted; it was about a Father saving his daughter; and that it would include some of those Nolan likes to use like a repertory company (though I was surprised by one addition); and I knew it was a space film about an astronaut. Conditioned as I was by most film stories, I had in mind a comet heading for Earth that must be dealt with, but it was more imaginative than that, and if not a more immediate threat, one no less devastating for the species.

First impressions were that the story would fit within my preconceived notions about a former NASA astronaut having to go into space one more time because he's the best there is, while having to deal with an accident from his past. In fact, things didn't follow this predetermined route, and ghosts from the past were the least of his worries (more like ghosts from his future!), with no qualms about taking on a mission upon which would hang the survival of the human race. The only psychological problem he had was in leaving a young daughter who was angry at him for taking on a mission that would take years to reach completion. And we feel the full force of this decision thanks to the ability of Earth to send messages to the Endurance, the craft undertaking this vital quest. The film isn't about space, despite giving us a real, believable environment and taking the time to build the story from the ground up instead of rushing headlong into adventure. It's about the bonds of family (though perhaps potential parallels were lost with the Brands, who go through a similar experience to the Coopers, but in opposition, yet the same care was not afforded that particular bond, I felt), but even more than that, and this is the theme I felt was central, was time. Murphy, Cooper's daughter is resentful of the time she lost with her Father, because when she eventually does choose to send a message, unlike her brother who's always communicated, it is to chastise him for breaking his promise that he'd see her again by the time she was his age. She's reached that age, and no sign. She doesn't even fully believe he'll receive the message, and the film successfully represents the vastness of space and time, and that the lives of humans of so much meaning to us, are like the drop in an infinite ocean.

Cooper's son is quite different, much more inward-looking to Earth as it is, not having vision for the need or possibility of escaping the doomed planet. From boyhood he was happy to take over his Father's farm, proud of his Dad's work, which Cooper himself has never liked, being a man that looks outward, with an engineer's brain and little to use it for: wasted potential. Tom seems more comfortable with the past and solid matters of soil and crops, the immediate solution to the world's survival, not seeing beyond this as Murph does. She's always been fascinated by the space missions and her Father's role, so much so that she gets into trouble at school for challenging the now-held belief that the Apollo missions were faked, a belief designed to keep children grounded so they won't have dreams of space and technology, everything on Earth turned inward toward farming to stave off destruction. It is a blight that threatens existence, not some celestial body, and only a lone voice exists to see beyond this view: NASA itself. It continues to exist in secret with two plans to secure survival: find a planet and either settle it with embryos, or harness the power of gravity in order to lift the massive complex that is NASA HQ into space to provide an escape for the people. I sympathised with Tom, in a way, even though he was pigheaded, not allowing his wife and son to leave the farm despite their obvious lung damage from the dusty environment, perhaps seeing it as his sister, who never believed in the farming way, trying to force her views on him, and attacking the family unit he's built, while he's tried to continue what he sees as his Father's work. That's how I interpreted his character, anyway.

I wondered why they had Cooper living with his Father-in-law rather than his own parents (from a story choice - in that world I think both his parents were dead), but if he'd had somebody to confide in on a deeper personal level (there's a slight distance between the pair that might not be there with a parent), rather than someone to share a beer with, it might make him less his own man and emphasised his own bond with Murph. Not that Donald doesn't have a view on things - he gives Cooper wise words on a reason for doing something. Cooper wants to go to space because he feels it's right, it's what he's always wanted to do, but Donald tells him that just because it's what he wants doesn't mean it's right. He calls back to a time (our world), where everyone was intent on getting the latest thing, and that now, where things are simpler due to the needs of survival, things might, possibly, be better. Selflessness and selfishness are another big theme of the film. Is making a selfless act the better way than choosing what you want? What Donald doesn't know, however, is that the last crop that isn't afflicted by the blight will eventually succumb, as Professor Brand has already predicted (though be careful in trusting what he says!), so is that saying that doing what you want could be the right way after all? Another support of this reading could be Brand's method of persuading people to work for the survival of their species: he believes it can only be done if people are thinking of their own personal survival, which is quite a negative idea, and may undermine what some may see as a humanist tone in the film.

Donald's words are expressed by Cooper to the younger Dr. Brand when she admits her choice of the second of three planets to visit is motivated by attraction to Dr. Edmunds, the pioneer sent to test that planet for suitable colonisation. They only have enough fuel to go to either this or Dr. Mann's location, if they want to also return home, the reason the plan was initiated - Cooper never loses sight of a return to Earth, by which time Professor Brand will have solved the equation to unlock gravity. But just as young Brand's reasoning was affected, her Father's was too: he didn't believe the main mission, 'Plan A' could succeed, because the equation didn't work, gravity couldn't be controlled with their level of understanding. 'Plan B,' to colonise a planet and restart the human race with the embryos they carry on Endurance, was the only solution. So he's lied to Cooper, and even his own daughter - they'll never return to Earth, they must begin again. But this isn't the last lie: the group votes to go to Mann's planet because the data is much more promising, but in a cruel twist, Mann himself has falsified the data to make them come and rescue him, loneliness having driven him almost mad. He cites the survival instinct, and yet he puts the future of humanity at risk by attempting to maroon those who came, almost derailing the whole mission. If Cooper is selfless, giving up his life and family (even to do what he wants to do), Mann is the epitome of selfishness, caring more for his survival than anything else. He claims he'll complete the mission, but I have difficulty believing anything he says.

So selfishness is punished, but that doesn't stop Dr. Brand from wanting to go to Edmunds in the first place, and if she had got what she wanted, none of that would have happened. We also see selflessness vindicated, when Cooper apparently sacrifices himself to get the vital data from the black hole, pushing Brand out of the pull in which Endurance is trapped, so she can slingshot around it and use the last remaining fuel to go off to Edmunds. In doing this, Cooper is truly selfless as he never wanted to give up his life and any chance of seeing Murph again as he promised, but to save his daughter and the Earth, the information must be retrieved. I'm not sure how he thought the information would get back to Earth, as Brand was heading to Edmunds… In the end, of course, he solves the riddle of the ghostly presence early in the film, the genesis of his involvement, being sucked into the 'tesseract,' which he realises was built by advanced humans from the future, the same benevolent beings who sent a wormhole through which humankind could be saved, and seeing time in three dimensions, sending the message to his daughter, then being flung into space so he could be one day found, rescued, and meet Murph on her deathbed (I appreciated them using an old actress to play her rather than makeup, though of course they'd already done this once by showing her go from girl to woman), the mission a success, he who was willing to give up his life, regained it, and he who tried to save it (Mann), losing it, which is very Biblical.

See what I mean about making you think? It does a great job of that, which so many films completely gloss over, or throw in an idea, never to speak of it again. But this film has continued with me, the succeeding days after I saw it, making me ponder its meanings and motivations. It may not have been one hundred percent engaging, as sometimes there were parts that were too slow, but those moments don't stay in the forefront of your mind - it's the themes that stick. A judge of a good film for me, is whether I'm tempted to look at my watch during the showing, and although it had a long running time, I never had that thought, and even after it finished I was talking about it through the credits and walking through town until I parted from my cinema buddy, because there was much to discuss. Sometimes I've come out of a film (for example, the first of 'The Hobbit' films), irritated and unsatisfied, but if anything, it was difficult to explain all that had just happened, and though I talked a lot it was more surface material and reactions I could speak of, because you need time to mentally digest this film.

All this sounds as if there was no degree of feeling to the story, beyond sadness at death or betrayal, but there were thrills of danger and horror to be had, too. There were wonders to behold, the incredible and humbling spacescapes and amazing phenomena, a sense of awe at the size and scope that we know is out there, but rarely connect with. The closest we can come with our own eyes is seeing the stars on a clear night, and if you look up and see all those points of light you can become dizzy with the impossible distances and scale. We're afforded beautiful vistas, with the Endurance only a speck across the bulk of Saturn, or hovering over new planets, but these things could also be said to be distancing and cold. What really matters to us is personal danger, as when they set down on the watery planet of Miller, but are those distant mountains we see? They aren't mountains, they're a huge wave sweeping in from the horizon, and Dr. Brand's insistence on recovering the black box from Miller's crashed ship almost gets her killed. I got a slight sense of this early on when Cooper goes off road into a field of crops to chase down a rare flying drone - I wasn't sure entirely what to think, as I hadn't quite grasped the state of the world at that point, and it was supposed to be fun, and there was a sense of excitement and wonder, but I was also wondering if it was dangerous. Well, that impression planted the seeds of trepidation (perhaps seen from a child's view, and also showing Cooper is a safe pair of hands, as well as his need for adventure), that fully blossomed on Miller.

It wasn't just the approaching destruction that held an awe of horror about it, but that going down to Miller, time was much different, so an hour on the planet would be seven years of Earth time, and at that point Cooper was still expecting to get back to see his daughter before too long had passed. It just goes to show that that old saying of 'things always take longer than you expect' should be taken to heart exponentially when dealing with the physics of space. This concept of time moving at different rates for different people was fascinating as we see it in action, and when they do eventually return to Endurance aboard their shuttle, Romilly, the man they left behind, intending to be no more than four years for him, has waited over twenty! I would have liked to explore this concept much more, I'm not exactly sure how in the context of the story, but I wanted more. Still, my expectations continued to be incorrect as I thought the film would follow a structure of visiting each of the three chosen planets, and having adventures on each, and that 'They' would turn out to be aliens, whether benevolent or with hidden menace, but none of this came true, which is good, as it shows that it wasn't travelling a well worn plane of stories.

One reason the film could be slow was because it took things seriously, it wasn't frivolous or silly, but took care with real science, or at least the appearance of real science, and because of that it made me think of 'Star Trek' which used to do that so well. Not only was this the style I felt the modern Trek films should emulate, but it was pretty true to a vision of a hopeful future (eventually), and that good people would survive, working for the greater good - even when Cooper knows the original plan was a lie, he also knows that the data inside the black hole could make it happen, so if he can make his last act one that will hopefully grasp it, it will be worthwhile. I'm wishing Nolan would do a Trek film! To make things seem more real we don't just rush around from necessarily the most interesting moment to the next, time is taken to build the world, and even though perhaps the same level of detail and approach may not be as true of the characters, despite not knowing all of them as well as we might, when they're in danger it makes us feel for their plight, partly because of the overwhelming force they face (the wave), and partly because of personal betrayal (Dr. Mann). You care about what happens because this isn't a superhero film, and these people can't just fly out of harm's way or use superior strength. But they do have help…

The robots deserve special mention, and if there's one surprise in the film that was the most subtle and unexpected for me, it was the revelation of these machines! At first sight they are box-like, and very old-fashioned in design, like something from a seventies space film (perhaps not without purpose as there are several things about this film that speak to that decade). They walk about awkwardly, are never fully on camera, as if it was difficult to make them work, so you're not given a full picture of how exactly they move. I thought they were a bit daft, to begin with, but it was all a blind. Nolan was saving them for a flourish where the veil drops, like a magician's sleight of hand that you don't see coming. On Miller's world, TARS is ordered to rescue Brand from the towering wave that rumbles towards them, and this previously clunky object that had been kept in the background, shows what it's capable of in spectacular fashion: it splits into a wheel-like structure and rolls over to her, before picking her up with extendable arms and hurrying back as fast as it could walk. We were lulled into the pace and feel of an old space film, and allowed to forget what is possible today! It was magnificent, in the best tradition of R2-D2's heroics: a complete servant to human masters, but not without its own ideas, far more developed than the boxy casing told. Instead of the stereotypical monotone voice, they had normal voices with character and humour - and just as in the other horror aspects of the film, we feel safe with them, and then one proves fatal thanks to the evil of Mann.

Because this is demonstrably not an action-packed film, and has more attention set on grandeur and spectacle, I was beginning to think there wouldn't even be one punch thrown in the course of the story, but there was: Mann surprises Cooper and a vicious struggle for survival ensues. Because Mann had been happy to leave Cooper dying I was also worried for the other team members, thinking he might just go and kill them if he was capable of this, so there was great tension in the whole sequence, far from the unconcerning and aimless battling in many films. Knowing that McConaughey was playing the main character and Michael Caine was in it (I'm not sure if I knew Anne Hathaway was in the cast before I saw it), I wasn't put off by there being no opening credits, so often the case now - at least the title came up at the beginning, which wasn't so in his Batman films! Consequently, I wasn't thinking about actors or casting, just watching the story unfold, so I was most surprised when who should pop up out of the stasis tube than Matt Damon!

It felt like it was supposed to be a surprise, as there was a feeling of expectation engendered (I don't know if his casting had been kept secret), and though this hadn't been a horror film as such, to that point, I wasn't sure where it might go, so was half expecting some gory remains or something strange about the face being unzipped. That it was Matt Damon was enough! I think he was cast because he's so often the good guy, the trustworthy all-American guy (like Jason Bourne, his most famous role), you can depend on. Who better to be a double-crossing murderer! It was disappointing, in a way, that Nolan deigned to stoop to the use of such a character since there was inherent drama in the whole situation, but he wasn't reinventing the wheel. I'm not really sure why Mann was so intent on escaping, because even when they uncovered his lie, they wouldn't have left him behind. The worst that would happen is he'd be considered a criminal, perhaps, but in the precarious insurance of life they'd need every man available. Loneliness had addled his mind, I think we can take that from his actions, and the instinct he cites of preservation had taken over to form logic only he understood. This is an example of the film's theme about love, because we see existence without it, and it's not pretty, this in reverse of Cooper and Murph's love, or Brand's love for Edmunds, though I felt that theme wasn't as complex as some others in the film (Professor Brand's selfless love for the race, sending his daughter knowing he'd never see her again wasn't really explored), but maybe it didn't need to be?

Not everything made perfect sense, even if it can be said to be up to your imagination and interpretation. The solutions were a little tenuous, such as Cooper being able to send the presumably deeply complex data TARS was able to transmit to him, via binary code to the watch. How long would it have taken to do that, and what was he actually sending Murph? If Brand was heading to Edmunds, what was the point of trying to retrieve the data from the black hole, since they couldn't transmit it to Earth - if it hadn't been for the tesseract, Cooper's sacrifice would have been a waste as he'd have been unable to send the data out and would have died in there. Shouldn't Plan B, the idea of starting again and leaving Earth behind, have meant more women should have been on the mission - on Noah's Ark, everyone was a married couple to be able to continue the race. It makes me feel uneasy for Brand, as there could have been fighting over her, in spite of having the embryos. Why couldn't they build space stations like the one seen at the end? Well, that last question is easy to answer, because they needed the ability to manipulate gravity before they could get such an enormous structure into space, though that doesn't explain why they couldn't have shipped up smaller parts and assembled it in orbit, though I suppose the logistical scale would have been almost impossible to cope with thanks to the level of technology and resources at that time. And talking of technology, why did the mechanical harvesters stop working and congregate at the farm near the beginning? Was this further tinkering by future Cooper as a sign he should stay, or was it 'They' who did that? It was never referred to again!

When he slid into this clearly constructed creation in the middle of the black hole, as abstract and inventive as the whole sequence was, it did start to lose me a little. I suppose I assumed he was destined to die since a sacrifice is often the way to create a bittersweet ending, but we got both, thanks to this completely unexpected twist, so it was probably more to do with my expectations being confused, and a little less to do with a slightly pat ending in that he doesn't face the consequences of sacrifice (unless you count seeing his daughter about to die). I never guessed it would be Cooper himself pushing the books off Murph's shelf, as I was still assuming alien intervention since we knew there was a 'They' out there which had sent a wormhole, but when Cooper's flying through space and his ship disintegrates around him as he ejects I wasn't sure if this was some kind of memory we were seeing or if he was dying, or, as I said, aliens. I'm sure Gene Roddenberry would have approved, but it was a bit too airy-fairy for me, even though the multiple time zones of Murph's room stretching into infinity was a dazzling effect and an incredibly executed idea. But that the story rested on the concept of future 'evolved' humans who had learned to incorporate the fourth dimension of time into three dimensions was a little excessive for me, even though it did lead to something of a happy ending, and more importantly, a hopeful ending, both for the human race as a whole, and for Cooper individually as he goes off to rescue Brand from Edmunds' planet.

There's no last scene in which he lands there and finds (as we saw), she's had to bury Edmunds, but the romantic side of the film was thankfully understated in the extreme. You could guess where Cooper and Brand would end up as the hero and heroine usually find true love, but they didn't fling each other into each other's arms as soon as they boarded Endurance, their respect growing naturally from shared experiences. And you can't get more respect for someone than if they sacrifice their life to save you! I was glad the usual tropes of film were circumvented like this - though there was a fight, it was a shocking betrayal, not an expected showdown that was built towards; there was affection between the two main characters, but Cooper's love was more reserved for his daughter and the life without each other that they missed (it was about saving her, but more about sacrificing the time they could have had), leaving him free to go after Brand once Murph had died, symbolically ending that love and beginning a new one for him. Nolan's films have often been criticised as being cold and emotionless, and it's almost as if he was responding to that by making this a heartfelt film with a central character very much affected by events. Dr. Brand, and some of the others still come across as remote and scientific, but then they are all scientists and intelligent people ruled by their minds, whereas Cooper is more of an everyman, the commoner who also has special skills required to increase the mission's likelihood of success, but is still rooted in the old-fashioned heroic mould of adventurer.

He proves himself on more than one occasion: while it is the robot that rescues Brand in the first action sequence, it is Cooper's daring and piloting skills that are put to the test when he must dock with the spinning Endurance as its orbit decays after Dr. Mann's misguided attempt to escape, which resulted in explosion of one of the modules and the potential end of the human race. The real feeling of space and being in that empty, hostile environment is shown superbly in this sequence by the rapid rate of the shadows dancing violently across the Endurance. Unlike most sci-fi, you don't have many external shots of the spacecraft, though there are some exceptions when we see it as a tiny object dwarfed by the celestial phenomena around it, but it's mostly seen from onboard cameras as a real spacecraft would be, and is, with the craft stationery on screen, but the light and planets revolving around it.

The score is not one I would probably enjoy away from the film, as I prefer a strong theme, but of the films I've seen from Nolan, he tends to go with a tone or sound rather than the traditional rousing orchestral piece. And it does suit this film's style to have the organs that recall a seventies space documentary or the pulsar of tones, as they draw you hypnotically into more belief in the vastness and wonder of space and the tiny struggles of the humans. It was very much in the way of 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture,' slow and deliberate, and many other space films of the era - you can see these were a big influence on the Director, and something he wanted to recreate again in an age where things tend to be fast and flashy. But it's just this careful and thought-provoking approach that makes any moments of jeopardy so much more real. The world we're seeing is solid, scientifically accurate, with even the 'out there' solutions (a construct in a black hole), using speculation on dimensions to work. You can do anything in storytelling, but there has to be a price, there has to feel like there are rules that it costs you to get around, otherwise everyone is Superman and can do anything without fear. Space is vast. It's empty but for these great wonders, and doing things in space isn't easy, it's a trial. Nolan is calling back to the pioneers of the space programme and asking us to think of the future, too.

In surface impressions, I have to admit I couldn't always catch what was being said, a bit like Bane in 'The Dark Knight Rises,' but as with that film I was quite happy with that, as I got the gist of it and it added to the realism that not every word was sharp and clear. The only instance that really stood out for me were Professor Brand's last words, which I didn't catch. It was the same with the music: in space scenes we were often given silence, as that's what it would be like in that environment, but at other times we did hear music, because the film's story came first above slavishly following accuracy of reality: they're all tools in the filmmakers toolbox. I felt the use of strong language wasn't necessary, though it was used mostly in times of great stress rather than gratuitously. I just felt the sense of awe and panic sufficiently conveyed the emotions without it, and might have made it a lower certificate. A few times I saw faces of actors I recognised, but couldn't place until the credits (John Lithgow, of course!), but generally the casting was ideal. When we first meet Michael Caine's Professor I thought he was doing an American accent, but then he sounded English the rest of the time, so I don't know what was going on there, and unlike the other characters he didn't seem to age in the twenty-odd years, but maybe I missed how much younger he was supposed to be when we first met him? Hathaway was fine, but I can't say anyone jumped out at me, despite this being a very personal tale, and I certainly wouldn't suggest the effects and scale of the endeavour outpaced the characterisations, but I was left thinking it would have made a good TV series, perhaps a one-season epic as is possible now, which would have given more time to the characters.

I was also interested to see this was a co-production from Warner Brothers and Paramount, which was interesting. But this was not a 'Star Trek' film. There is a hopeful future, but it's arrived at in spite of lies and cowardice. Perhaps it's more realistic in that way than Trek (although even in that we have to go through a third World War to reach utopia!). The problem of the film is as simple as humans making their own mess, and my own first thought was to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, which was later mentioned. Reading up on it, I found the old people speaking in documentary style were real, from an actual film about that time (explains why they seemed so genuine), and rooting the story in an emotive and difficult period for the nation that also created space exploration was a deliberate ploy, as it shows both the highs and lows of human life. I'd have liked to learn more about the world, and its curious disbelief in the achievements in space of the past, but there wasn't time. The film may not have been flashy, but it had beautiful moments. It wasn't full of action, but that only emphasised the moments we saw. It could be slow, but the atmosphere drew you in. And it was all based around people, not mighty heroes we can't identify with, but real people and their reactions to the potential end of humankind. Not going softly into this good night. So the film may not be as optimistic as you might think, but it's also true to the savage survival instinct of the species. It's something that's kept me thinking long after the experience ended, and the more I think about it, the more I want to see it again, which is a good way to come off of a film. Most these days aren't worth the admission fee, but this one most definitely was.

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