7.4 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Deep into a solo voyage in the Indian Ocean, an unnamed man wakes to find his 39-foot yacht taking on water after a collision with a shipping container left floating on the high seas. With his navigation equipment and radio disabled, the man sails unknowingly into the path of a violent storm. Despite his success in patching the breached hull, his mariner's intuition and a strength that belies his age, the man barely survives the tempest. Using only a sextant and nautical maps to chart his progress, he is forced to rely on ocean currents to carry him into a shipping lane in hopes of hailing a passing vessel. But with the sun unrelenting, sharks circling and his meager supplies dwindling, the ever-resourceful sailor soon finds himself staring his mortality in the face.
Starring: Robert RedfordDrama | 100% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
English, English SDH, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
What a difference a mere few weeks can make. As recently as December 2013, trade publications like Variety were full of speculation that this year’s Academy Awards would fête two lead performances that were more or less solo turns with little to no dialogue. The female side of this equation was Sandra Bullock in Gravity, while the supposed male honoree was deemed to be Robert Redford in All is Lost. Bullock is still in the running, and may indeed take home her second statuette for her adrenaline pumping role as newbie astronaut Ryan Stone, though the smart money is probably on Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine (a win which may be even more probable now, with some more prurient types wanting to see how she’ll handle the “Woody Allen issue” in her acceptance speech). But Robert Redford? He didn’t even snag a nomination, something the iconic actor took in stride after the nominees were announced, laying the blame squarely on an ineffective marketing campaign. It’s too bad, really, for All is Lost is certainly a tour de force from a pure performance perspective. Redford is really the only character on screen for the film’s running time, and as mentioned above, there’s barely a word of dialogue uttered throughout the entire film. What we’re left with instead is an incredibly visceral story of survival against incredible odds. Sound familiar? Of course it does—this film plays like a waterlogged cousin of Gravity. All is Lost also features a similar kind of technical mastery. While Gravity’s Alfonso Cuarón and his team spectacularly recreated the daunting problems Ryan faced in a weightless environment, they at least had the benefit of being able to digitally manipulate the cinematic environment in several cogent ways to help foster that illusion. All is Lost is obviously completely earthbound, and while much of the film was evidently done in a tank, there’s still somehow a more viscerally “real” feeling to seeing raging water pouring over the film’s unnamed hero than there perhaps is in the Cuarón film. Interestingly, there’s another connection between the films, in terms of a major plot conceit both share: in both of these outings, it’s “junk” floating around indiscriminately that wreaks the havoc from which the central characters spend the rest of the films trying to recover.
All is Lost is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. Chandor and his DP Frank G. DeMarco utilized the Arri Alexa on the film, and it features a nicely detailed and generally sharp looking presentation. The collaborators also tend to use a kind of "jiggly cam" approach throughout large portions of the film, which simultaneously adds a touch of verité as well as a certain degree of softness. All is Lost depends on just a few isolated elements to provide pops of color. The open sea (whether actual locations or tank set) sequences are surprisingly monochromatic a lot of the time, cast in a kind of slightly gray-green ambience that doesn't offer much visual allure, but which appropriately mirrors the man's increasingly desperate straits. "Little" things like a red label on a life raft or some blue fabric on a masthead provide the only relief from an intentionally oppressive visual environment. Fine detail is quite exceptional in the many close-ups, revealing things like the extremely fine blonde hairs on Redford's arms.
A film without dialogue? Or even without a boisterous music score filled with ubiquitous, thumping source cues? How can anything like that provide reference quality audio? Well, folks, pull up a chair and prepare to be amazed: All is Lost's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is simply a wonder of impeccably nuanced sound design. Some of the elements are somewhat predictable, like a muffled, watery sound when Chandor shoots from underwater. But other moments are simply breathtaking, from the simple, almost palpable sounds of a breeze and waves gently lapping against the hull of the boat to the ferocious onslaught of a life threatening storm. It's a shame that Redford wasn't nominated for this film, but the sound editors did receive a well deserved nomination and could well take home the trophy.
There's no accounting for the vagaries of the film industry. Gravity took the movie world by storm this past year, while All is Lost seems to already be an also ran. This is a film that matches Gravity's majesty and celebration of the resiliency of the human spirit, and technically it's certainly close to being in the same league. If you can stand this much adrenaline in one sitting, this would make an excellent double feature with the Bullock film. The Blu-ray offers fantastic video and reference quality audio and the supplements, while relatively slight, are also very good. Highly recommended.
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Includes "Silent Space" version
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