Dir. Gareth Edwards UK 2010
I caught both of these films on Instant Watch this week. They're both minimalist, low-budget (one much more so than the other) sci-fi flicks with small casts and high concepts. I wouldn't call either of them new favorites, but they're both well worth your time and warrant a bit of discussion.
Moon is the directorial debut of Duncan Jones, son of David Jones, better know as David Bowie. I'll refrain from any Space Oddity and Ziggy Stardust jokes and just say that Jones shares his fathers fascination with the unknown, both physically and psychologically. However, he eschews the psychedelic fantasy of his fathers work for a believable reality to create one of the hardest sci -fi films I've seen in years.
In a one man (sort of) tour de force, Sam Rockwell portrays Sam Bell, an astronaut in the last two weeks of a three year contract to mine helium on the moon. Fueled by a desire to see his wife and new daughter (who was born while he was away), Sam attempts to stave off boredom and loneliness, with only an AI construct (voiced by Kevin Spacey) for company. When an accident caused by a possible hallucination leaves Sam injured and even more unstable, a strange new arrival at on his one-man space station threaten to unravel everything Sam knows about his past, present and future.
I'm being purposefully vague here because there's a first act twist that I don't want to spoil (although if you've heard even a little bit about the film, you probably already know what it is), but I think I can say enough about the movie otherwise without giving anything away. Jones has stated in interviews that he is a fan of the austere sci-fi films of the 60's and 70's (2001, Solaris, etc.), and Moon certainly wears those influences on its sleeve. The mining base, as the sole location in the film, is heavily grounded in real science and combines the sleek, white Macbook look of the new Star Trek film with the grubby, lived-in vibe of the original Star Wars films. Both the spartan, claustrophobic interior of the station and vast emptiness of the lunar surface combine to draw the viewer into the cramped loneliness of Sam's headspace. For a 90 minute film, Jones definitely allows the film to breathe, wallowing in the day-to-day slog that is Sam's life on the moon. It's slow, but never boring.
Really though, this movie rests on the shoulders of Sam Rockwell, who creates a multifaceted, believable character in Sam Bell. Rockwell is probably one of the best character actors working today, with scene-stealing supporting roles in Iron Man 2 and The Assassination of Jesse James. Moon is one of his rare leading roles (apparently it was written with him in mind) and he makes the most of it, blending humor, confusion, fear and despair into an understated, but extremely affecting performance.
I don't know that I'd say that Moon is for everyone, but even if you're not into sci-fi, I'd say it's worth checking out. The plot is twisty and thought-provoking without being overly complex and it's just the right length for such a slowly paced film.
Monsters isn't as well made as Moon, but it's definitely the more impressive of the two films. Made for less than half a million dollars and shot on location in three weeks without permission with a seven man crew (the two lead actors included), Monsters is a film that makes you wonder how studios still manage to invest hundreds of millions of dollars and months of work in films far that are far less interesting.
Set six years after a NASA probe crashes in Mexico, Monsters explores a world where the titular creatures have overrun Central America, forcing the United States to build a massive barrier to keep them out. The film follows a mercenary-minded young photographer named Caulder, who travels the region documenting the destruction caused by the aliens. He is forced by his wealthy employer to escort his daughter, Samantha through the infected zone and back to America after she is trapped by a quarantine order. What follows is a low-key indie romance/road-trip film that occasionally features giant squid aliens.
The 90 minutes that make up this film were assembled from over 100 hours of shot footage and whittled down from an initial 4 hour rough cut. This isn't surprising, given the shaggy, unhurried pace of the narrative. The plot is straightforward and simple and the spaces between the few major story beats play out in short, documentary style montages of travel and observation. This is clearly a film more interested in exploring a world than telling a story and watching it feels like a cross between looking at someone's (well-shot) vacation photos and looking at a photo expose of a war zone. Considering that the plot is, in broad terms, a tried-and-true road-trip/action film plot, the movie has almost no sense of urgency, even during the "action" scenes. If you go into this expecting Cloverfield, you will be disappointed. This is best exemplified by the fact that Edwards devotes the 10 minutes that would be the final climax of an action film to a beautifully shot and rendered interaction between the humans and the monsters that is genuinely moving.
In a lot of ways, this is a very uneven film. The lead actors are a bit bland (for a real life couple, Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able display some lukewarm chemistry in this film) and don't do much to fill out their lightly drawn characters. The film is also a bit on the nose with some of its social and political metaphors. It also features some fractured chronology that ends up being completely unnecessary. As a mood piece, however, the film is a compelling portrait of the chaos and decay lurking at the edges of American society. And the special effects are surprisingly beautiful for something done in the directors home computer.
Neither of these films are going to go down as my favorites and neither packs the sheer originality or pulpy fun of District 9, but they are both encouraging examples of small-scale, personalized science fiction, demonstrating that limited resources and a lot of ingenuity often generates better art a studio-commissioned script and hundreds of millions of dollars.
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