Thoughts on Oblivion

As a big fan of the sci-fi genre, it often saddens me to see the same old Aliens attacking the earth and wearing slightly different costumes every time. Somehow someone always turns out to be the hero and saves planet earth. All the innovation on the part of filmmakers is spent on the guns, artillery and destruction images. For me, this doesn’t work at all. What I desire to see in a Sci-fi movie- more importantly a movie dealing with Outer Space are images- Strong images that emphasizes on the idea of the life beyond earth or far from earth. This is where 2001: A space Odyssey succeeded in an almost unparalleled way. Those visuals that showed the outer space or should I say the Director’s (or the novelist’s) imagination of the outer space. Those images and the strong focus and pause on each and every image are what made it so much special. Similarly Danny Boyle’s Sunshine or Duncan jones’s Moon worked for me big time- both have them having strong focus on the visuals and done subtly.

Watching Oblivion was a great experience for me. It’s quite different from what’s shown in the Trailers. It’s such a breath of fresh air from the loud action zero story science fiction which have less science in the fiction. The most striking feature of the film is its visuals. From Tom cruise’s Aircraft to the monitoring system to his station where he lives are all simply stunning, There’s a scene where the lead actress goes bare body in a swimming pool- Trust me if you will- the beauty of that scene is not the actress’s body but the swimming pool. The Images of a nuclear struck Earth and the mini twists in the story compliment the visuals beautifully. It’s a long 2 hour plus film and believe me, I was ready to watch it again once it got over.

The story is very good if not great and even though I could guess the twists and turns, I liked it that they were there. The first 30 minutes and the last 15 minutes are visually stunning. Tom Cruise is perfect for this role. It’s amazing how calmly he portrayed a character which could have been done horribly wrong by some other actors. Tom displays the right emotions and manages to depict his attachment to his planet through his monologues and gestures.

Oblivion is a great film for me. Not because it has an exceptional story to tell but because the path the filmmaker chose to tell it. There could have been a lot of noise and unnecessary activity in this film but it remains subtle and does the job in a brilliant way. Love it for the story , love it for the background score, love it for discovering the now getting lost emotion of “Man’s love for his planet” and love it for the visuals. I hope there are more such Sci-fi movies in the future.