Post by Amanda on May 16, 2007 12:51:37 GMT -5
From Film Snitch:
Sunshine (15)2007 Dir. Danny Boyle
“It’s hard,” says Danny Boyle. “There’s a level, it’s 2001, it’s Alien, and if you don’t get there, it’s Red Planet and Mission to Mars.”
The assembled giggle and nod sagely, because he’s right. If you make sci-fi you can’t be OK. Adequate is nothing. Average is, frankly, rubbish. Whether Sunshine, the fruit of three years work by the 28 Days Later director meets his own lofty ambitions is debatable but it is clear that he cares deeply about it. It is all or nothing. He is also ready for the pedants and Kubrick freaks...
“No sound in space? I know but if there’s no sound, there’s no movement. The ship would have no mass – the sound provides weight. Movement is everything. It’s the same with the stars. I wanted a jet black sky, there are no stars that close to the sun because of the light, in the same way you can’t see stars during the day on Earth. But first time I saw it, the ship didn’t seem like it is moving, that’s why there are always stars in these films. There’s a reason that these things are there. No gravity in space, make something on the ship spin. You learn these things as you go along. Oh and no classical music otherwise it just sounds like you’re ripping off 2001.”
It’s clear that, now at least, he understands sci-fi. The man who strapped Ewan McGregor to a railway track has chosen on this occasion to strap eight astronauts to a bomb the size of Manhattan and launch them at The Sun.
For this premise, originally a bomb the size of Kansas, he has gathered a few familiar faces. There’s 28 Days Later writer Alex Garland, musicians John Murphy and Underworld, and of course Cillian Murphy who seems barely less emaciated than in his previous roles. To this he’s added Japanese megastar Hiroyuki Sanada and kung fu specialist Michelle Yeoh in what seems a concerted effort to shift the focus of the fictional crew to the East. However he did stubbornly complete the entire production on British soil.
“It’s not meant to be a consciously British thing,” Boyle explains. “The cast is very international, deliberately. It’s just there are a lot of talented people here so it made sense.”
He is so proud of Sunshine that he eschewed the directors chair for the zombie sequel 28 Weeks Later. What this has cost him personally can be seen in his face as he recounts tales of law breaking in a deserted London on location for the original and of stalking reclusive avant-garde rockers God Speed You Black Emperor for the soundtrack to the famous waking sequence. However, there can be only one baby in the nest and he seems relatively happy with the prodigal son in the hands of Esposados and Intacto director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo.
The theme of the narcotic, be it heroine, money, or in this case light, recur in Boyle’s work. Narcotics give and take, demand payment and encourage aberrant behaviour. Even choosing life, as Renton discovers, has consequences. This is the conflict at the heart of Sunshine. What price something that must be done at all costs?
For the first hour Sunshine is a beautiful thing of scintillating sights and carefully underplayed acting as you wait for inevitable problem to occur. The moment when the crew sit and watch Mercury pass in front of the sun is almost breathtaking and when you consider that the actors are really sitting watching nothing, it’s quite an achievement. All this will mean hordes of the gormless complaining about a lack of pace of course, but let them moan. There are more references to Alien than the nodding toys of which Danny Boyle is so proud. Like the Nostromo, the Icarus 2 is a ship where people live and work, they are supposed to be real people. People do not, on the whole, behave like Hollywood actors. As such, Danny Boyle hits most human notes perfectly.
So how good is Sunshine? It is actually hard to tell. 2001 got a clean run at history – literally no-one had seen anything like it. Star Wars managed the same trick a decade later with that Star Destroyer roaring overhead dragging endless waves of nostalgia behind it. Maybe it’s actually not possible to surprise and inspire in this medium. It doesn’t help that both Event Horizon and The Sphere have trampled through this territory like poorly scripted elephants.
Is it great? Maybe but only just, and it takes a sci-fi fan to truly appreciate it. However, the financial success of 28 Days Later, in percentage terms the second highest grossing film in Fox’s history, afforded Boyle and his team a great degree of creative freedom. It meant no studio contract star, no overblown American hoopla and perhaps most importantly no script interference. This effectively means you don’t know who is going to die and when, or even whether the mission is going to be a successful. As fate’s pendulum swings back and forth, this most basic but neglected of cinematic devices gives the final moments of Sunshine genuine tension. It’s a rare thing and that should be enough for anyone.
--
I disagree that you have to be a sci-fi fan to fully appreciate it. I generally don't watch or care about space films (I know sci-fi branches off to more than just space, but a lot of times when people say "sci-fi" they think "space"). I think you have to be, y'know, an intelligent human being to fully appreciate it, not a fan of anything in particular.
Sunshine (15)2007 Dir. Danny Boyle
“It’s hard,” says Danny Boyle. “There’s a level, it’s 2001, it’s Alien, and if you don’t get there, it’s Red Planet and Mission to Mars.”
The assembled giggle and nod sagely, because he’s right. If you make sci-fi you can’t be OK. Adequate is nothing. Average is, frankly, rubbish. Whether Sunshine, the fruit of three years work by the 28 Days Later director meets his own lofty ambitions is debatable but it is clear that he cares deeply about it. It is all or nothing. He is also ready for the pedants and Kubrick freaks...
“No sound in space? I know but if there’s no sound, there’s no movement. The ship would have no mass – the sound provides weight. Movement is everything. It’s the same with the stars. I wanted a jet black sky, there are no stars that close to the sun because of the light, in the same way you can’t see stars during the day on Earth. But first time I saw it, the ship didn’t seem like it is moving, that’s why there are always stars in these films. There’s a reason that these things are there. No gravity in space, make something on the ship spin. You learn these things as you go along. Oh and no classical music otherwise it just sounds like you’re ripping off 2001.”
It’s clear that, now at least, he understands sci-fi. The man who strapped Ewan McGregor to a railway track has chosen on this occasion to strap eight astronauts to a bomb the size of Manhattan and launch them at The Sun.
For this premise, originally a bomb the size of Kansas, he has gathered a few familiar faces. There’s 28 Days Later writer Alex Garland, musicians John Murphy and Underworld, and of course Cillian Murphy who seems barely less emaciated than in his previous roles. To this he’s added Japanese megastar Hiroyuki Sanada and kung fu specialist Michelle Yeoh in what seems a concerted effort to shift the focus of the fictional crew to the East. However he did stubbornly complete the entire production on British soil.
“It’s not meant to be a consciously British thing,” Boyle explains. “The cast is very international, deliberately. It’s just there are a lot of talented people here so it made sense.”
He is so proud of Sunshine that he eschewed the directors chair for the zombie sequel 28 Weeks Later. What this has cost him personally can be seen in his face as he recounts tales of law breaking in a deserted London on location for the original and of stalking reclusive avant-garde rockers God Speed You Black Emperor for the soundtrack to the famous waking sequence. However, there can be only one baby in the nest and he seems relatively happy with the prodigal son in the hands of Esposados and Intacto director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo.
The theme of the narcotic, be it heroine, money, or in this case light, recur in Boyle’s work. Narcotics give and take, demand payment and encourage aberrant behaviour. Even choosing life, as Renton discovers, has consequences. This is the conflict at the heart of Sunshine. What price something that must be done at all costs?
For the first hour Sunshine is a beautiful thing of scintillating sights and carefully underplayed acting as you wait for inevitable problem to occur. The moment when the crew sit and watch Mercury pass in front of the sun is almost breathtaking and when you consider that the actors are really sitting watching nothing, it’s quite an achievement. All this will mean hordes of the gormless complaining about a lack of pace of course, but let them moan. There are more references to Alien than the nodding toys of which Danny Boyle is so proud. Like the Nostromo, the Icarus 2 is a ship where people live and work, they are supposed to be real people. People do not, on the whole, behave like Hollywood actors. As such, Danny Boyle hits most human notes perfectly.
So how good is Sunshine? It is actually hard to tell. 2001 got a clean run at history – literally no-one had seen anything like it. Star Wars managed the same trick a decade later with that Star Destroyer roaring overhead dragging endless waves of nostalgia behind it. Maybe it’s actually not possible to surprise and inspire in this medium. It doesn’t help that both Event Horizon and The Sphere have trampled through this territory like poorly scripted elephants.
Is it great? Maybe but only just, and it takes a sci-fi fan to truly appreciate it. However, the financial success of 28 Days Later, in percentage terms the second highest grossing film in Fox’s history, afforded Boyle and his team a great degree of creative freedom. It meant no studio contract star, no overblown American hoopla and perhaps most importantly no script interference. This effectively means you don’t know who is going to die and when, or even whether the mission is going to be a successful. As fate’s pendulum swings back and forth, this most basic but neglected of cinematic devices gives the final moments of Sunshine genuine tension. It’s a rare thing and that should be enough for anyone.
--
I disagree that you have to be a sci-fi fan to fully appreciate it. I generally don't watch or care about space films (I know sci-fi branches off to more than just space, but a lot of times when people say "sci-fi" they think "space"). I think you have to be, y'know, an intelligent human being to fully appreciate it, not a fan of anything in particular.