Interstellar: A swift journey through Cinematic space

“Where are the movies going now-a-days? Is there no other elements to entertain than mindless actions scenes with nude romances in the movies?” these are the common questions asked by common audience. But these questions are of the past Christopher Nolan answered them with his Master Piece “Interstellar”. The current generation of movie lovers including me are so immersed in the cinematography in the making of the movie we forgot the actual soul of the movie, the plot.

Yes, the plot. When was the last time you have seen a movie with a new plot, when was the last time you have watched the unexpected? When was the last time your brain has to actually think to understand the movie? No, you might not have an immediate answer because those movies are next to none for we are in the era of “Bangs and Bends”. But a folk here is the good news for you, Christopher is still making movies, he once again created hope that he won’t let the world cinema go aghast. In fact our generation might even laud ourselves to our children that” we lived when Nolan was directing the films”.

“Interstellar”- where to begin? Where to end? I the past couple of days many people asked me, how was the film? What was it about? Here is the answer folks. It’s just not something I can tell you. It’s just something that only Nolan can show you. But as usual people won’t stop there, they need an answer, so I tell them it is 169 minutes of space journey in the space that explores the concepts of Time and Gravity while explaining the human love is the only concept that can travel through the space unaltered by either parties. Confused? Then you are on the right track!!! Like I said you have to use your brains to understand this movie.

Donald (John Lithgow), Cooper’s (Matthew McConaughey) father says, ” You were born either 40 years late or 40 years early” . Actually I agree with it for this cinema. Films like these should be made 40 years later so that the people have the better understanding of the science that involved or 40 years ago as they might have kept it aside as a scientific fantasy and enjoy just the visual wonders the movie has to offer.

I have seen many people from different parts of the world give many opinions on this master piece. Most of them are awe filled like me, but some are there who can’t or won’t appreciate the movie that requires your brain to actually function. For them it is one the films that simply can’t answer their questions. Here is a suggestion if you want the answers “come prepared”.

You are watching a space odyssey for gods sake. It doesn’t hurt you to have some background knowledge about the astronomical bodies and their endless mysteries. So instead of searching for loopholes in the movie try to enjoy the grandeur of Science Nolan has to provide, because if Scientist like Neil deGrasse Tyson can’t find any loopholes, I am sure you definitely can’t.

Enough about Nolan and his epic, let’s discuss the science in the movie. We humans have evolved so much the past millennia. Our brain has now achieved the capacity to observe and understand the 3 dimensional objects. We have been hearing the theories and researches about the dimensionality of the universe. If we are to say that the entire universe is evolved from the “Big bang” then we can’t prove that theory with the three dimensional understanding we have now. There are many unknown variables in the equation. Some say gravity is one of the variables and some say time is the variable. Nolan exactly used these variables in his film to script the Interstellar.

Metaphysics, that’s what the movie deals with. Metaphysics at its deepest work. From the basic principle of Centrifugal force for gravity generation to the travel behind the horizons of the Black hole everything was wonderfully visualised. The explanation of the wormhole was never done in the entire history of the human race so effectively.” Wormhole is the shortcut through the space and that defies the gravity and time,” he even gives a paperback explanation of distance between the two points.

The tides that rise to the heights of mountains in the planet near the black hole and the frozen clouds in the next planet, none were out of the place. Everything was carefully crafted and embedded. Nolan showed the 5 dimensional spaces in a 3 dimensional format so that human Brain can understand some of the mysteries the universe provides. Yeah, take your time (Read the previous sentence again if you want to understand it better).

I was left perplexed by Nolan’s understanding of the metaphysics. For person so immersed in filmmaking how can he have such deep visual knowledge in the science that even left many scientists flustered? Then I got the answer when I went into the movie making information released by the film crew. Two years ago Nolan approached a highly unlikely collaborator “Kip Throne” for his new film project. Kip is one of the most renowned theoretical physicists of the modern era. Nolan had many sittings with Kip to kick start the ideas on the time travel and space continuum. They explored many questions together about time travel and moving with the velocities greater than the light of the speed.

We are not here just to know about the science we are here about the justification of the narrative by visualising the wonders the science provides. For that we need Nolan’ vision as a film director. Instead of choosing for the CGI(Computer Graphics Interface) Nolan shot the maximum extent of the film in the sets. He made the set of almost everything. Irony is that even though this movie is about the space travel and greater part of the movie in shot indoors. Building a spaceship that actually floats is one hell of a miracle. Think about transporting it all the way to Iceland for shoot. The entire corn field in which the movie was shot itself is a set.

Even the dust used in the dust storm was manmade. It’s a biodegradable substance called C90.And then there is matter of creating false gravity without the CGI. Nolan built a rig called parallelogram to create the inverted gravity sequences. Every aspect was so carefully crafted, it really makes the movie our own journey it the space. The one more technical element that brought the unknown to our grasp is “Hans Zimmer’s” sound track. The point to note here is that Nolan asked Zimmer to compose the track even before naming the project. How’s that for a bang!!

Even though the movie entirely ideas with the scientific fiction, the audience were still able to experience the emotional depth in the movie. Matthew had outdone himself in role of a father who jumps into a spaceship to explore the unknown world for protecting the future of his children. Murphy, a daughter who eddies herself to hate her father for leaving her but keeps coming back to the room and he watch her father left for her Professor Brand who hides the truth from his own daughter and sends them to the unknown world for her own survival. The reducing the “honesty mode” to 90% in spaceship tell you all that is there to know about Interstellar. The director was able to complete the equation by saying that even though the time and Gravity are the variables in the equation human love is only constant that actually gives the meaning to the equation.

A friend of mine who is in film making business asked me when I was discussing the movie with him, he asked a question “How on earth did he write a script like that? And how the hell did he explained it to the cast and crew? How is it possible? I bet even most of them didn’t understand it correctly.” Those are his exact words.

As for me, I am in love with Interstellar. This is the film making combined with science at its best. The complexity of the movie Interstellar was both mesmerizing yet confusing, making the average viewer like me want to see the film again and again in order to fully appreciate the film's plot. This is the classic Christopher Nolan effect from watching one of his breathtaking films. ”Anything that can’t go wrong, won’t go wrong,” Murphy’s Law proved right once again. From this first viewing though, I can say that Interstellar was magical to watch.

The movie was an opus. It was a masterpiece that wove together, the philosophy of Nietzsche, with Sci-if notions captured by Bradbury, Lucas, and Rodenbury. Nolan sprinkled in some elements of Little House and brought it all together in epic an experience that literally takes a clichéd theme, and truly makes it relevant and plausible! Now go and Experience Einstein's Curvature of Space as no other feature film has shown. But be advised: do some research on the wormholes and black hole or you will be left in one. Adios...!!