Spoilers everywhere!!
Wormhole, black hole, relativity, neutron stars, singularity, zero gravity, three dimensional space in a five dimensional world - these are some of the jargons and weird scientific terms that one would come across while watching Christopher Nolan’s ‘Interstellar’, the latest sci-fi adventure to wash Hollywood’s shores. The hype was ripe and the expectations were sky high not only because of its mammoth budget but also thanks to the director’s belligerent record of reinventing the non-linear narrative style time and again. Has ‘Interstellar’ transcended the threshold of the rhetoric filmmaking of the run-of-the-mill sci-fi flicks? The answer if of course a resounding yes. And how did it go about doing the same?
The story is set in a not so distant future, where the entire world is reduced to an agrarian economy. People find it hard to thrive in the disintegrating planet that is marred with dust storms and blight. Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a former NASA test pilot turned farmer lives with his family and is surviving the blight. His daughter Murph (Jessica Chastain) often brings to his notice that a ‘ghost’ is communicating with her through Morse code, which Cooper fails to believe. One stormy day Cooper and Murph are being hinted with the help of a Morse code (by the supposed ‘ghost’) of a coordinate that would lead them to a secret facility. They reach there and find out that the secret facility is in fact NASA, which is being forced to be in secrecy due to a fund crunch. Professor Brands (Michael Caine in a tailored role) approaches Cooper to steward a mission to find a new planet for sustenance of the human race that is out of our galaxy. Cooper decides to go on with the mission against his daughter’s wish and what ensued was something not every common viewer can comprehend. The inter-galactic travel, the concept of time getting dilated when there is a heavy gravitational pull and an hour spent on a particular planet consuming seven years on earth are some of the things that need meticulous introspection and thought not only for the filmmaker but also for the viewer.
The audio-visual experience with which a concept as mammoth and equally vague as this has been narrated was literally out of this world. An aura that gets created through exquisitely cinematographed sequences (thank you Hoyte van Hoytema) and brilliantly orchestrated background score (take a bow Hans Zimmer) was something that has to be experienced in theaters. The portions where the spacecraft enters the wormhole, lands on a planet where the ocean is just one foot deep but has skyscraper like waves, the sequence that involves Cooper being thrown into the black hole and so many small but granular scenes were made with panache and sensibility. Definitely Nolan has taken a giant leap with this brilliant piece of filmmaking that would have demanded every nerve of his to ache for a very long time.
The performances were equally good too. Of course Matthew Mcconaughey continues his brilliant form and was fierce in his role. The other noteworthy mentions would be Jessica Chastain as Mathew’s aged daughter and Michael Caine as the Professor. Anne Hathaway with her tastelessly made up hair was just there to balance the equation. Matt Damon was there just to carry that extended cameo role and it could have been anyone’s role for that matter.
Even though the concepts of space and time were heavily researched to stay as close to the reality as possible instead of depicting them as a form of cinematic blasphemy and even though a character in the movie explains the journey through a wormhole with a lame representation on a piece of paper, just think of the plight of an average viewer who has to undergo the agony of going through his/her high school physics text book before watching this movie. These high-fi concepts were sort of an overkill. In other words, the average viewer doesn’t really care about all these intricacies in the script but would no doubt be awestruck with the experience (if he watches this movie in theaters, especially in an IMAX equipped one).
There were so many unanswered questions too even after the movie is over (or to put it simply, the portions which leaves me scratching my head even now) - what’s the age of Cooper when he falls into the blackhole and how long does he communicate with his daughter through Morse Code? How is he getting saved from there and for how long has he been asleep and why did he not age during his sleep and so many more. Please leave your comments if you have any clue.
For me it was purely a sublime experience to watch a movie of such a brilliant stature. Director’s vision counts here and wins hands down beating any ambiguities whatsoever. Just sit back, relax and immerse yourself into this rare cinematic experience. Dont forget to embrace those emotional but philosophical moments that are interwoven so very subtly into the script that one cannot separate that from the high science which the film boasts about. In fact the emotional thread in the script is its epicenter rather than all the scientific musings put together and still that is one way at looking at enjoying this brilliant piece of space odyssey!!
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