1
hr & 46 min, color, 2013
That the makers of this sea
adventure chose to give the above title to their film is in no small degree
amazing. I am sure that it has been
enough over the past few months since it was released to scare many away from
it. If all is lost for the main
character, in fact the only character portrayed, where in the unfolding of
action could we expect to go from there?
Is this a story of survival or one of futility? Struggle or doom? It does not sound promising of final reward. The most appropriate response to the words
would be a shrugging of the shoulders, an attitude of dismissal. Who wants to see and hear somebody’s last
gasp of faith and hope?
Believe me, there is good
reason to ignore these visceral responses.
What we have is a gripping and in its own way inspiring motion picture
that captures something of the length and breadth and depth of the life force
and is far more open-ended than the title would lead you to imagine. I found it quite fascinating. A part of that fascination is the way it
demonstrates the true essence of what dramatic acting really is. At most only one fifth of the business of
portraying a character is dialogue from a script, words memorized and
spoken. At least four fifths has to do
with non-verbal communication – body language, facial expression, the shape of
the mouth, sounds made with the throat, the control of the legs and feet, the
use of the eyes, pauses, postures, shifts of weight, and gestures. One must give physical specificity in the
painting of a persona.
Robert Redford does just that
and does it superbly. He is the lone
member of the cast, an Everyman in the latter part of his life, sailing by
himself far from land and faced with the frightening aftermath of a terrible
accident that imperils him. There is no
dialogue in the picture, only a brief voiceover of him in a moment of apparent
lost-ness at the very beginning, his futile S.O.S. and two curse words at a
point of intense frustration. Otherwise
all we learn about Our Man (the name by which he is called in the credits) is
what we observe studying his movements and watching his struggle. He gives a terrific non-verbal performance,
and thereby endears himself to his audience.
It takes real seasoning to bring that off; he has fifty years of it.
Let me first set the
scene. One morning alone he awakes to
find water rushing into his cabin where it is not supposed to be and discovers
when he comes topside a huge metal container that has fallen off a merchant
vessel during the night unbeknownst to its crew. The container has floated up against his sailboat
and gashed a hole in its side, the boat and the metal object fastened together
close to the aperture. After he
maneuvers his craft with the use of ropes until he breaks it free of the
container, he further discovers that the water in the cabin has knocked out his
radio, which he tries in vain to revive so that he can send the S.O.S. His boat is crippled and suddenly adrift, its
steering knocked out of control, subject to the danger of sinking, and he is on
his own at the mercy of the ocean wind with no means of contacting another
living human being.
His subsequent struggle, and
this is the other fascination, is metaphorical for what happens in any human
life when normalcy is suddenly and drastically disrupted by a major
crisis. Think of an unexpected negative
diagnosis or a potentially debilitating injury!
His subsequent activities fall into four distinct stages, as they might
for any of us. First of all INSTINCT
plays its hand. He knows his ship, knows
what is at his disposal, and knows where everything is. Automatically he goes to work flushing out
water, covering and pasting up the hole left by the collision, picking up
scattered objects, assessing the damage to various and sundry items, tying down
the sail. He goes on automatic – too
busy as yet to contemplate possible eventualities.
The second stage is that of
SELF-DEFENSE. In a personal crisis it
could mean fighting against the throbbing of a recurring or incessant pain or
the onrush of a new one. For Our Man it
means fighting off a feeling of desperation and panic, doing battle with a
raging storm that flips his vessel over and soaks him to the skin, even
momentarily washing him underwater. It
means increasing exhaustion and an injury to his head, which he has to doctor
all by himself with his limited medical resources. It means watching the calm and friendly sea
to which he is accustomed turn savage and terrifying and brutal.
The third stage is that of
SOMBER ACCEPTANCE and at last a contemplation of odds and options. This is forced upon him when he has to let
his sailboat go and pack himself and all he can salvage into a plastic life
raft. An especially touching moment for
me is the one when he has to say a silent goodbye to his prized possession and
watch from the raft as it slowly sinks before his eyes into its watery
grave. It is like standing at a loved
one’s deathbed watching them breathe their last or having to hang up the car
keys when the infirmities of old age make driving hazardous. Letting go of a piece of your life that has
brought you a special joy! And without
scripted words or any narration his face projects the pain of
it. He has to adjust and chart
unfamiliar territory! He has to rely
upon map and compass to track the flotation of his small raft, as it drifts
with the wind, movement over which he has no control. And he does all this as he runs out of food
and clean drinkable water. He even sets
up a makeshift fishing line – one that does not prove seaworthy. The lurking sharks, as vultures of the sea,
coldly signify the proximity of death.
When he crosses into a major
shipping lane, hoping to find rescue but cannot get any ship’s attention to his
plight, he arrives within himself at the fourth and last stage: RESIGNATION,
SURRENDER. Surrender to what seems to be
inevitable! I guess we can say he casts
himself totally and completely into the hands of God. What happens then amazes even further.
There is no need for me to
pretend that “All Is Lost” is anywhere near the great work of art that “Life of
Pi” (released in 2012) is, a survival-at-sea adventure reviewed
enthusiastically by me in an earlier blog entry. But it does have an excitement very similar,
one that gradually takes us into the realm of the spiritual, that brings us
close to the ground of our being, that allows us to touch the essence of the
divine, if we are prepared for the touching.
Barring that, it still allows lovers of the sea to enjoy another intake
of its beauty. And we who are not sea-going
get to learn a lot about the discipline of sailing, as well as the risks.
A young man named J. C.
Chandor is the writer and director of this movie, one that required much
professionalism from the technical crew.
If you choose to view it on DVD, I strongly recommend consulting (after
your screening, not before) the Special Features to get an idea of how much a
feat it was for Chandor to make the film on a very small budget. One member of the cast, one person seen for
the entire hour and forty minutes, but with hundreds of individuals (listed in
the closing credits) working behind the camera.
As quaint as it may appear, this is no home movie!
To read other entries in my
blog, please consult its website:
enspiritus.blogspot.com. To learn
about me consult on the website the blog entry for August 9, 2013.
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