Interstellar did not receive the most important nominations at the Academy Awards, but I can assure that it had an unquestionable relevance at every social gathering I attended during the end of last year, stealing everyone’s attention for hours. I believe this is one of Nolan’s goals as a filmmaker. For some, it is a story of sheer spiritualism with even a religious aim, for others, it is a praise to emigration, and some people regard it as a very ambitious approach to scientific subjects which escape our true understanding. It is, indeed, a work that attempts to cover a lot within the limited time a movie can last. Nevertheless, there is one thing which remains steady: all of the complex issues that affect human beings and their existence in this universe, suddenly, become visible and unavoidable.
This director, who has been as acclaimed as he has been criticized for his complicated films, has plunged into the sci-fi realm with Interstellar, thus giving birth to what has so far been his most unfathomable and transcendental diegesis. Multiple universes are possible, and within them, spacetime is a sure thing. He relies upon actual scientific theories, but he shapes them with a peculiar mindset regarding love as an unbeatable force. His personal trademark, in this case the emotional proposal which is presented in the second act of the movie, arrives unexpectedly and, on a first impression, seems conflicting.
Nolan is a director who innovates and, in doing so, he presents his themes from an unanticipated perspective. The manner in which he and his brother manage the concept of love is part of an auteur viewpoint that not only affirms this emotion as an extraordinary force, but seeks to point out how it affects and determines our actions, in the way that we accomplish things, propelled by it, that we otherwise wouldn’t achieve, deeds that take us further. In Interstellar, it is the love for his family what leads the main character to embark on a journey that serves as the means by which he transcends the spacetime barrier. Moreover, all of the concepts that are introduced from a scientific point of view, represent the everyday man’s problems and concerns. In an interview with Fast Company, Jonathan Nolan said that the topic of time, for instance, spells out the issue of loss.
This approach to something so subjective in the midst of a highly scientific story, is the cue the screenwriters inserted for us to realize that, as it happens, science is not the subject matter, neither in this story nor in the history of humanity (even when this is a science fiction movie). The main question is, simply, man, with everything that involves being so. This is all an attempt to answer human concerns, that’s what the movie is about and that’s what our lives are about. And isn’t love a very important part of our affairs? That feeling which anomalies startle us and make us wonder and do things we cannot fully explain, at least not yet, as it occurs with gravity. Love is to our actions what gravity is to our weight: it defines them.
Interstellar is, unequivocally, a true work of art, but it is also a fact that it may be too heavy a burden for the moviegoer. Nevertheless, I wonder, when hasn’t a significant story been a burdensome experience? Isn’t that the implied agreement between the filmmaker and the spectator? One pays with currency to be entertained, but the mind and emotions must also pay, with active work, when they are nourished by the artist. Nolan feeds the judgment that makes us question ourselves the things we take for granted. How important it is to question stuff, from time to time.