Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Movie Review: Love

Love (2011)


A lone man in an orbiting space station finds that communications from Earth have stopped. Without human contact, living in complete isolation, he slowly loses touch with reality.

This is very much in the vein of "Moon", "Solaris" (1972), "2001", etc. It's exploration of man's outermost space set against exploration of man's innermost space (the mind). It's a great "genre" in part because these are the two places where absolutely anything is possible. When the protagonist sees a future version of themself or dances with points of light, it can remain perfectly ambiguous to the viewer as to whether it's real or imaginary.

Filmed on an absolutely minimal budget, "Love" was made for about $500,000. Writer/Director William Eubank basically built a space station in his parents' back yard and filmed a single actor inside it. The amazing thing is how great it ends up looking and how well the small budget is concealed.

Mainly "Love" is about isolation (another thing it has in common with some of the above movies). From "Robinson Crusoe" to "Cast Away", it's a theme that's long held a great deal of fascination. But the title isn't ironic. One of the ways to see how central love is to humanity is to observe the effect on an individual when love is completely absent.

Like "Solaris", you should go into this movie only if you're in the mood for a slow pace. The number one criticism I've seen of this movie is that "it's boring" because "nothing happens". But it's a movie that explores total isolation. That's what it's like.

7/10.

1 comment:

  1. 2001 is one of my favorite movies of all time, but I have to admit pacing is an issue. In Kubrick's opus I give it a pass because of the insane tension and humanity-on-the-cusp-of-a-new-dawn feel to it. I don't know if I could watch (and enjoy) one guy talking to himself for two hours. Maybe I'm weak.

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