Monday, October 21, 2013

Space is scary


The movie Gravity is vast, beautifully made and ingeniously plotted. And I hated it.

I don't like space. I don't like infinity. I don't like silence and extreme temperatures and airlessness. I don't like the idea of hurtling weightlessly and uncontrollably.

It's as though director Alfonso Cuaron crawled inside my head, found all the things I find completely unacceptable and put them on screen.

I suppose all the things I hate about space are also true of the sea. But I do not fear water. I did nearly drown once but didn't realize it until afterward because the undertow that had completely taken control of me felt so confident and trustworthy. I understand intellectually that it might have taken me way, way out to sea and not returned me to shore (which it did with a painful thud) for days, but I just somehow knew when it was happening that the sea wouldn't do that to me and I'd be fine.

I don't like space. Space is bad. 90 minutes of Gravity scared me the way the shower scene scared audiences in Psycho.