aixcentric

This film actually gave me motion sickness.  We bounced off the atmosphere with Neil Armstrong, endured an out-of-control spin in Gemini 8 and jolted back to earth, shuddering and lurching – all recorded with ultra-closeup hand-held cameras.  Too realistic for this cinema-goer!

Of course it is a sensational story, tracing the US mission to put a man on the moon before the Soviets.  Walking home after the film, we marvelled at the fact that they had done it at all – nearly fifty years ago, with very early computer systems and what looked like rudimentary hardware.  An incredible achievement by NASA.

Ryan Gosling plays Neil Armstrong as a cool, determined astronaut, terribly affected by the death of his little girl and traumatised by the fatal accident which took two of his colleagues; his wife is played by the marvellous Claire Foy who has to keep the family together while her husband risks his existence repeatedly.  Why did he do it?  The film doesn’t really answer this question but celebrates the fact that he did.

Trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSoRx87OO6k

It is very noisy with full orchestral accompaniment, lots of spinning images and flashes of light, plus vertiginous photography. Our cinema in England had taped a warning to the entry door.

Bottom line: I was glad to have seen it but would have preferred shorter special-effects sequences in space with a bit more narrative about the hero on earth.

At the Renoir from today (October 17th).