All Is Lost (***1/2)

J. C. Chandor’s (Margin Call) possibly allegorical tale is a model of visual storytelling. It begins with a man (Robert Redford) literally and figuratively at sea reading a desperate-sounding message in a voice-over that become the last bit of dialogue for a long while. Then it flashes back, but barely a week, and in that scene he is also at sea, on a boat that has had its hull damaged and is leaking. One thing after another is the story. It is Life of Pi without the magical realism or idyllic beginning. (The two films do both employ the gifted underwater photographer, Peter Zuccarini.) The breakdown of the man is the story also, and Redford must and does carry the entire film. We know virtually nothing about the man except that he is resourceful and seemingly stoic. Save for the scenes shot from above and below the waterline, the movie is entirely from his point of view. We are too caught up in his battle for survival to be depressed. It’s essentially a simple story whose powerful, concise telling is a strong argument for the power of the medium of film.

IMDb link

viewed 10/17/13 8:00 pm at Perelman Theater at Kimmel Center [Philadelphia Film Festival screening] and posted 10/14/13

Encounters at the End of the World (***)

Werner Herzog has made a career out of depicting man confronting the extreme. His recent work includes Grizzly Man, a documentary about a man killed by the creatures he sought to protect, and Rescue Dawn, the Christian Bale-starring POW drama. In Antarctica, those with a taste for the extreme congregate. Here, the only continent where Herzog had not made a movie, he finds scientists as well as those doing the more mundane work that supports them.

IMDB link

viewed 7/16/08; reviewed 8/5/08