Grounded

...is the motif for see it. not the special effects. not the atmosphere. but the speechless story. who has nothing different by others Sci Fi at first sigh. only questions and suggestions and a man reduced at his experiences. the result - a religious film. about life, events, survive, parenthood, fundamental decisions, the other. a mirror - film.

Very impressive opening sequence that is the equal of any professional film. A spaceship breaks up over another planet. On the ground, we see a couple of astronauts. The imagery here is enigmatically anachronistic. Will this be an homage? Alternate history? Time-travel?

Alas, it is ultimately nothing, as the start of what could have been a great story is followed by no story at all. Some have said you are supposed to make of it whatever you want. Well, I wanted to know what was going on, but I wasn't able to make that of it. Instead, I watched a series of short scenes that did not feel really all that connected to each other. What began as Good Ol' Science Fiction became some kind of surreal Art House Impressionism (I guess). The production quality remains high though the last frame. But it is all wasted as any sense that it means anything is quickly replaced by pretty much random, at best oddly metaphorical, moments.

Feels like a lost opportunity for a filmmaker who could have made a great mark, if only there had been a good story.

When the crew of ship is jettisoned, only one man survives, and only through taking the helmet off another man. He was probably dead but..... Then we have a kind of allegory of survival, a sort of religious experience portrayed. A man is planting seeds in arid soil. We are left to our own interpretation of what occurs here. Probably the filmmaker's intention.

When it opens with a great effects shot of a spaceship out of control flying across the screen towards an explosion, before then panning down to the surface to see the result, I did immediately assume we were in for another short film where the ability to be good with computer driven visual effects will not necessarily play out that the film is good with anything else. I have seen several very empty shorts where technically what was done with the effects was very impressive but really the film had nothing else whatsoever. While I do not think Grounded works as a whole, I have to totally give it credit for never once just being all about the visual effects.

On the contrary what Margo and Meeker appear to be going for here is a short film version of the end of 2001 – not so much in terms of its themes but more in regard to the way it can be bewildering, appears to hold meaning but is not going to give that up easily. So in the film our astronaut falls to the surface of the planet where it transpires that he has already fallen to his death. As he considers this, he falls again out of the sky, hitting and killing himself. So far so weird, but it doesn't stop as we get an old man tending to grass when the dead astronaut turns up again, wearing clothes similar to the older man. All of this appears to offer something but for the life of me (and several viewings) I could not connect to the themes it was trying to present.

It is ironic that it is so far from being "all about the effects" that actually it went so far that it left me behind; perhaps I am not as smart as other viewers, so me not getting it doesn't mean others won't, but I did feel like it was all too deliberately obtuse and while the makers understood the film, they didn't do enough to bring the viewer on and help them to, if not understand, then at least have some context for the short.