By guest columnist the_film_fanatics.
The story of how man first set foot on the moon is one we all know, not exactly one you can find a suspense story within: we all know who makes it to the moon and that they make it. There’s little in the way of tension in watching a movie about the struggle to get there when you know how that story ends, but Damien Chazelle – ever the innovator and creatively aggressive both personally and professionally – seems to know this.
Instead of just telling the story of how we got to the moon, he decides to tell the story of the man that got there as well as how he did it: what drove him and what odds he faced every step of the way, how gazing at the moon worked its way into the mind of something as earth bound as being a father. That’s the pin drop that grounds this still very technical film, a dizzying, vivid barn burner about impossible odds and impossible people.
First Man is a film about numbers, machines, problem solving and blistering rocket fuel that is just as procedural in its calculated filmmaking bravado and storytelling niche as the actual mission. From the moment it starts Chazelle thrusts you into the atmosphere as you watch Armstrong pilot the X-15 rocket plane above the clouds. Bolts rattle, clouds blast past, a little analogue clock ticks down the thousands of meters the plane gains every split second until they start to steady out. We see the sunset shine on the previously hidden Neil Armstrong’s visor, almost everything is seen from his perspective and the camera is never attached somewhere it couldn’t be.
It’s blissful yet real and nerve racking. The visual language is tight and filled with tension and the release is a burst of pure space-set spectacle and emotional intimacy. This is the first and one of the best moments in a film full of exhilarating and memorable scenes.
Chazelle pushes forward with his directional hand to try something completely different to anything he’s done before, crafting a film full of stylised suspense and grounded emotion. He frequently employs such a controlling cinematic hand it almost feels cold at times, from the wide lenses paired with shaky close-ups to the various dramatic jumps in time. But it’s where he employs texture over that daunting cinematic control and how it all unites that makes the difference between man-made clock work and something artificial.
Most of the time at least, your ears will be ringing by the end whether you like it or not, and waiting for the moon landing to happen over the course of a very long film can be overbearing. Still, some of the best tools in Chazelle’s box include his calling card Gosling, who gets to go for a more restrained (but still sentimental) performance than he’s ever been allowed before, and Claire Foy who simply stuns and staggers as an ace in the hole. There’s also a host of talented, likable actors like Corey Stoll, Shea Whingham, Jason Clarke and Kyle Chandler who make up the cast and fill it out so perfectly.
Justin Hurwitz’s score is an utter triumph and is used with such satisfying grace, at once bringing you and your ears to edge of your seat with thundering intensity and swelling them with gentle feeling like a lullaby. The immense editing and sound design also account for some of the sensory overload the film achieves, and the costume and set design are often stunning in how well realised they are.
It’s Linus Sandgren however who’s the stand out, whose work with 16mm on a contemporary biopic that’s at once a stylised telling of a real myth and bold highly documentarian portrait of a piece of history is to be revered and felt, not just looked at.
Chazelle and Gosling illuminate the story of a man more than they do the story of a miracle, painting a vastly cinematic epic that’s at once filled with space bound gravitas, tight-knit tension and palpable pathos.
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