Sunshine

2007

Director: Danny Boyle

Distributor: Fox Searchlight Pictures

Key Elements: Concept – Visuals – Symbolism

My Review:

This movie stands alone in my mind as one of the most artistic and moving I’ve seen. The sun is burning out, so a team of astronauts must fly a bomb into the sun to reignite it – of course, things don’t go as planned.

The first thing I loved about the movie was its atmosphere. It created its own world. Inside the spaceship, everything was clean and sterile, hummingly electric and stoically purposeful. A prime example of this is the futuristic, green oxygen garden.

The world beyond the spaceship’s heavy duty shield is a stark contrast to this controlled environment. It’s an insane, dreadful force of heat blasting away anything that escapes the protection of the shields.

It’s the power of the sun that is the most lasting impression the movie leaves. It captivates one astronaut, and drives another crazy. The awesome solar intensity could be interpreted as a metaphor for the power of God. Those who are captivated by it live for Him. Others are driven mad with a desire to have the power for themselves.

But one things is for certain, after watching this movie, I never consider a sunbeam in the same way – nor anything else God has created.

Trailer:



Quotes:

• Our sun is dying. Mankind faces extinction. Seven years ago the Icarus project sent a mission to restart the sun but that mission was lost before it reached the star. Sixteen months ago, I, Robert Capa, and a crew of seven left earth frozen in a solar winter. Our payload a stellar bomb with a mass equivalent to Manhattan Island. Our purpose to create a star within a star. Eight astronauts strapped to the back of a bomb. My bomb. Welcome to the Icarus Two.
• It’s like taking a shower in light. You loose yourself in it.
• The point about darkness is you float in it. You and the darkness are distinct from each other because darkness is an absence of something. It’s a vacuum. But total light envelopes you – it becomes you. It’s very strange. I recommend it.
• It was… beautiful.
• Ladies and Gentlemen… Mercury.
• Only dream I ever have... is the surface of the sun... everytime I shut my eyes... it's always the same.
• When a Stellar Bomb is triggered, very little will happen at first -and then a spark, will pop into existance, and it will hang for an instant, hovering in space and then, it will split into two, and those will split again, and again, and again... detonation beyond all imaging - the big bang on a small scale. - a new star born out of a dying one... I think it will be beautiful... No, i'm not scared
• Warning. You are dying. All crew are dying
• So if you wake up one morning and it's a particularly beautiful day, you'll know we made it.

Stills: