All Is Lost

A man (Robert Redford) is sailing alone in his yacht but during the night, his vessel collides with a container adrift on the sea while he sleeps. The yacht is flooded and she loses her navigation and communication equipment and heads to a violent storm. When the yacht sinks, the sailor embarks in the liferaft that is carried adrift by the currents to a shipping lane. His fight for survival begins.

"All Is Lost" tells the story of a skilled sailor fighting to survive stranded in the high sea. Robert Redford has stunning performance, the cinematography is impressive but the writer is lazy and should have researched more about navigation and lifesaving procedures. In addition, there is no character development and the viewer never knows what the man is doing in the Indian Ocean.

Vessels have bilge pumps and EPIRB and pleasure yachts usually have also portable bilge pumps. Robert Redford is shaved all the time and never wears lifejacket or immersion suit or even a hat to protect from the sun, maybe because he is the star of the movie and needs to show his face. The inflatable liferaft does not seem to have the usual survival equipment and the sailor does not have a survival kit ready on board for emergency situations. But despite the flaws, "All Is Lost" is not a bad movie. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Até o Fim" ("Till the End")

I immediately hated the idea and movie when I first heard about it. After leaving the cinema in the half 10 years ago in Cast Away disaster and hating all Tom Hanks movies after wards, I thought "no, not again!". Then I forgot about it.

Then fate comes in. Here I sit with my girlfriend in a lazy Sunday afternoon and we're preparing to watch Grand Budapest Hotel on DVD. But wait, All Is Lost begins in a movie channel before I switch to DVD. While I was busy with preparing wine & cheese my girlfriend says "wait, this movie got my attention, let's see where it goes".

After 2 hours we sit with admiration on the simplicity & minimalist style vs. the strong portrayal of human will and survival instinct against nature elementals. Yes, we definitely liked this movie.

And of course we're not sailors. We do not know the technical details of what to do or what not to do in sailing. Of course there were some logical problems when we asked "wait, why did he do that?" in some scenes - but this didn't bother us enormously.

But when I entered and read the reviews here, I confront with human ego, I-know-everything attitude of "sailors" here. Ego is interesting, don't get me wrong I do not criticize this. If this movie was about health & illness and the main character was ill in a remote island and tries to heal himself, you should see my technical rant here as a health professional. Yes this is E.G.O., Everyone Got One.

But if you can pass ego, this is real nice movie showing the strong will and instinct of human being vs nature. Definitely not a waste of time as I prejudicially thought before..

When I saw the movie, All is Lost, I thought I was watching a movie based on a true story. The movie is very realistic in that it portrays perfectly the way I think someone would feel out in the ocean all alone. Many people will probably not like this film for how little dialogue there is in it.

For sailing enthusiasts this film does have a few reality checks. But for the most part I felt very much the same as Our Man, the character in this film. This is a credit to the director and his ability to make the audience feel vested in the main character's survival. This movie, while very good, does move slow at times. And while I am not a sailor I did notice a few of the reality checks in this film too.

What really makes the movie for me is that there are actual ocean disasters that are eerily similar in how they play out for the main character in this film. If know of some of these you will understand why this movie and its portrayal of the main character are so well done.

The ending is something left entirely to the viewer to interpret. But even that I found to be very realistic and probably the best part of the movie. This movie does a great job of trying to show the viewer how even when you seemingly do things right, bad things can still happen. It follows the old adage of "when it rains, it pours" or "one thing after another".

All is lost or is it?

J.C. Chandor is a lucky man. After scoring an Oscar nomination with his 2011 screenplay and debut Margin Call, he swiftly got the opportunity to work one-on-one with another original script and a silver screen legend, Robert Redford. Unfortunately, Chandor is not a reliable hand behind a pen. After a promising first act and a killer ensemble, Margin Call seems to lose the will to live with no momentum, tension or really, drama, moving it towards the moment where the film sort of has to end. However, despite what its prologue may tell you, All Is Lost has the will to live. In fact, that's all its got as it wrestles through its narrative. The premise is both ambitious and minimal. It's a premise that you hear and wonder how someone could make a compelling film out of something so vague. Well All Is Lost achieves it, but holds onto that vagueness. I can't really recall the details of what happens besides miscellaneous actions, but this is a film about the experience and taking you along for the ride.

From a technical standpoint and for an independent film, it's rather unmatched. It may not be wide in scale, but it's convincing in the details of its design. Whereas sea-bound films such as Life Of Pi have been distracting for the moments where its pool sets are clearly apparent, All Is Lost is thoroughly convincing that we are forever in the middle of the ocean through its cinematography and special effects. I wish the editing didn't jump around as much, it was impossible to truly get immersed in the situations and the weight of the challenges. But most importantly besides the visuals, it's a soundscape. With much of the sources of the sounds coming offscreen, the conviction of the sound editing and mixing are astonishing and often frightening. The one dip out of the fly-on-the-wall approach is the score which appropriately highlights the films best and most poignant moments. But in a one-man band, it all hinges on our lead. Our Man, Robert Redford.

I've only seen him in a collection of 60s and 70s classics and I know at the very least he is a confident and often charming lead. I know him more for his direction work with his Oscar winning Ordinary People and Oscar deserving Quiz Show. All Is Lost was quickly pronounced his opus so I was intrigued given his reputation. With no dialogue to work with, his performance is in his overwhelmed but quiet expressions that try to grasp what little soul he has left. Surprisingly, it's not a showy performance but one that perfectly blends into the texture of the film. However, it doesn't achieve what Gravity achieves when faced with the risk of mortality. We don't know enough about Our Man, his story doesn't mean enough to us. Instead, we're left with a strong melancholy. As like Margin Call, the film simply deflates from its tragedy, and while they may try, characters can't do anything against the obstacles Chandor puts in front of them. At least this was a little more believable.

7/10

This is one to watch, especially if you have watched and enjoyed Cast Away. To be honest I did not expect to like it so much, knowing the type of movie this is. It is really fascinating though to realise how well this movie goes on based purely on one man's resourcefulness. The pace of the film is great with the action scenes keeping me on the edge of my seat. Redford in his late 70s gives a truly solid performance confronting his misadventures with extreme calmness and pure dignity. The character gives real time lessons on how to survive under such dire circumstances. A film dedicated to mortality. Quite different from what you may have seen in related films. I definitely recommend it!