"All is Lost" (2013)

Many have described All is Lost as The Old Man and the Sea, and it's a fitting label: a seventy-some year old man (Robert Redford) tries to survive out in the ocean when his boat is damaged. And yet, the film is better described as Man versus Environment, or, better still, Man versus Death. We never learn the man's name and barely hear him speak an utterance and while much of what happens to him is specific to survival in the waters, the physical toll and psychological tear could be transplanted to any a number of circumstances. Like its largely wordless, visually powerful 2013 counterpart Gravity, All is Lost is a film about human endurance and ingenuity under impossible circumstances. The majority of the film is simply watching Redford confront one escalating problem after the next until it seems that the film's title will become true. It's not an easy task to command screen-time so long by oneself, with no dialogue minus an opening voice-over, but Redford brings his legendary film star status forth to draw us in. In Redford's face, his weariness, we read a troubled past: he's lost many things before this moment; he's lived a long life and has seen some trying times. As the man deals with crises, he shows collected determination. He does the tasks he needs to do and doesn't crack under pressure. He's apparently a longtime seaman who knows what's to be done in these circumstances, and he keeps anticipating that things will smooth themselves out before they get any worse. They don't, and yet he keeps persevering, in ways that many people, even ones much younger than him, might not. He keeps preserving to a point where we get a sense that the only thing that has kept him alive this long, in life generally, is dogged persistence. The film is filled with simple, powerful imagery. It takes advantage of the vastness of the ocean, and emphasizes how easily the man could be swallowed up. Watching to find out is exciting and moving in equal measure.

★★★