Take a Stand

Conditions: Edge of the Wave

What a Big Voice You Have

Little Malala Yousafzai, who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban for her efforts in promoting education, just missed out on winning the nobel prize for peace. She did however score major points with me after speaking about the meeting she had with President Obama.

"I thanked President Obama for the United States' work in supporting education in Pakistan and Afghanistan and for Syrian refugees," she said of her meeting.

"I also expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fuelling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people. If we refocus efforts on education it will make a big impact."

Malala called for greater co-operation between the governments of the US and Pakistan. She met the President in the Oval Office, where he signed a proclamation to mark Friday as the International Day of the Girl.

- smh.com.au

You know, there’s something very special about that girl. Good for her.



Film Review: Gravity

The reason I never wanted to go into space is because I’ve always known that the traditional, romantic view of space travel, full of clean white corridors and whizzy computers, was a complete fallacy. In actuality, space travel is a gritty, cluttered, freezing, uncomfortable, claustrophobic drag. So it is proven in Gravity, Alfonso Cuaron’s latest. Starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney (and no one else), this film gives us probably the most realistic space-disaster movie ever when the Russians set off a cataclysmic chain of space debris after they blow up one of their satellites. George and Sandra are working on the Hubble telescope at the time and end up being caught right in the middle of a nightmare scenario as the space shuttle is wiped out by an expanding wave of space debris. Now they have to make their way to another space station in order to try and get back to Earth in one piece.

While an amazing ride, giving such a sense of realism and isolation to this tale of orbital chaos you can get a bit dizzy, the thing about this film that strikes me is how stripped down it is. Every little thing that is not strictly a part of the Sandra Bullock story has simply been excised. And to me that makes this film less of a ...well, film. It’s more like an extended action sequence. This happens, then that happens, then the next thing happens, then so on and so on, until finally the movie ends and we can all let out our breath. I feel films are meant to be more than just a sequence of events, they’re meant to have more nuance and perspective to them to help tell a story rather than an event.

Despite the brevity and leanness of the film, it is brilliantly created. George is his usual relaxedly-focused self, and Sandra is just terrific as this somewhat reluctant astronaut who is forced to fight and struggle her way back down to the planet, the highs and lows, the incredible will to keep a step ahead of disaster. There are some very touching scenes in her rollercoaster ride. Cuaron has focused on building the film out of long takes and slow pans, and the music is brilliant. In the end though it does feel a little bit like an experiment to see how much you could cut out of a story and still have it float. And while we all finally relax as the credits come up, I can’t help but wonder how the film might have worked if there had been more depth, more background to this story. Four lullabys out of five.



- Peace out