The Movies We Watch: Sunshine

First, a trailer you must watch.

Then I must tell you what I've seen.

Sunshine is indescribable. I don't even know how I could tell you about this movie, recommend this movie, without telling you about it. Anything I tell you will ruin it.

It captures this amazing sense of profound solitude and loneliness. Almost the whole movie takes place aboard a ship that we get to see maybe 8 rooms of, none all that large. We see space, and we see Sol, and it feels empty. The sound is large and hollow, space is quiet. The music changes from sweet violins and trumpets to tribal drums, feedback, and static. You can feel the sanity skewing isolation that covers outer space. You truly feel alone watching it. There is only you and the 7 member crew.

The movie has one of the single most scary effects I've seen in a movie, ever. Every time it made my skin crawl just a little bit more, and I missed it the first two times. Parts of this movie had me squirming in my seat, pushing myself away from the screen and into the cushion.

The villain, the saboteur, is portrayed in a way that just breeds panic and confusion. Much like the old sci-fi of the low budget 50s, we never get to see him. The terror, and it's terror, is psychological. None of it visceral.

The story itself is lean. It's methodical. Every step it takes it takes for a reason, never taking more steps than it has to, but never skipping one. It's slow, it's methodical, it's packed, and it almost feels like too much. It steps right to that threshold then looks down before resting.

So, this is probably one of the more disjointed things I've ever written, especially when it comes to movie reviews. That's due in part to the fact that it's late and I'm tired, in part to the fact that the movie hasn't settled yet and I'm still excited over it, and partly due to my catharsis.

The Greeks said that in any good play, by the end, the audience should have experienced a catharsis. They themselves should have experienced the same roller coaster of emotions as the players, and at the end, have a feeling of emptiness and satisfaction. I felt both empty and satisfied.