Gravity: Sandra Bullock Gets Existential

If you haven’t seen Gravity yet, go see it, then read this post. Here are a few thoughts I had about the film.

The tension between technology and nature comes up frequently and in different ways.  The astronauts are dependent on both, yet both are not always dependable.  One could interpret this movie as a critique of technology, but that would be an incomplete analysis.  Technology was what brought them into space in the first place, but technology (or its imperfection) caused the accident.  Technology brought Ryan Stone to safety, but more accurately, technology enabled Stone’s intelligence to bring her to safety.

In some ancient science, the universe had four elements: Earth, Fire, Air, and Water.  This is relevant for two reasons.  First, all four elements are present in the movie at some point.  This points to a nice contrast between primitive and modern science.  Basically, we’ve come far, but we’re not there yet; science still lets us down.  Second, all four elements represent some kind of danger.  The air is dangerous in space, fire is dangerous in the space vehicles, water is dangerous once she reaches earth, and earth is dangerous as the cause of her daughter’s death.

When up in space, one can either look in the direction of the vast darkness or at the astoundingly beautiful and (at least somewhat) comforting Earth.  As Stone hurtled through space untethered, she stared into the vast depths of space, away from the comforting familiarity of Earth.  The deafening silence only contributes to the awareness of the seeming pitilessness of space.  As she moved out of control through space, there was nothing and no one to help her.  But can we say the same thing about living on Earth? If we adopt a strictly evolutionary mindset, then yes.  I hesitate to say that the film had religious themes.  This seems like a stretch.  Sure, Stone talks about praying, but this is more easily interpreted as a hastily thrown-in attempt at a theme or as a representation of someone’s natural response to inevitable death.  The film is certainly existential, but maybe not quite religious.  It does, however, leave you with an existential question, one that I will leave you with now.  If technology is not enough, and if nature is not enough, then what is?