During the film Gravity, there is a scene where Sandra Bullock's character talks to someone via radio, but the two languages are different and no sense can be made although she does at least benefit from some type of human contact as she prepares to never have it again in what little remains of her short life. This short film shows us the other side of that conversation as we watch an Inuit fisherman with his dogs and his family. This film does have an emotional core but it is one that will work best if you think that Gravity is the most moving, beautiful human story you have ever heard; I don't think this (it is a great ride, not a great film) but many seem to be praising the film as if it were perfect on all fronts. That said, I do think Bullock did a very good job to make the most of her character and her feelings.
This short film will need you to be there in that moment again to really work, otherwise it is a very simple scene that we are dropped into and most of it is fed by the contrast with the space-side scene we have already been part of. It is well filmed and I liked how intensely white and empty the picture was – it is essentially the opposite of the empty blackness of space in the film and, although it really is only a visual thing, I liked that contrast a great deal. Otherwise I didn't get too much from the short film other than seeing what I had already seen from a difference angle. The performance from Ignatiussen is nicely human in terms of his character and his actions, and he does make the film better by his work. As a show piece for Jonás Cuarón maybe this will have some use – but I suspect his father will give him more of a benefit than this film will.
Well worth a look if you loved and were moved by Gravity – but without that feeling and that memory, there isn't too much here.
