Saratov and Gravity

Spoiler Alert

Within a week's time I've seen both The Saratov Approach and Gravity.  They are interesting movies to watch back to back like that.

In some ways, the movies are very different.  Alfonso Cuaron may well have spent more money on one scene of Gravity than Garrett Batty spent on his entire film.  I don't know.  But one is big budget Hollywood and the other is LDS indie.  Gravity has Sandra Bullock and George Clooney.  Saratov has ... Corbin Allred (no offense, but outside LDS cinema, do many people know Corbin Allred?).  One film takes place in space, the other in Russia.

Ultimately though, both movies are about survival.  They are both about people trying to survive unimaginable circumstances.

Throughout the stories, Dr. Stone (Sandra Bullock's character) and Elders Probst and Tuttle must face their fears.  At first, they all hyperventilate with fear and feel utterly alone.  But gradually, they collect their wits and begin to do the best they can in their respective situations.  And in both films, there comes a moment of ultimate crisis. 

Dr. Stone and Probst/Tuttle are faced with essentially the same choice: face certain death or do whatever it takes to survive.  What is so fascinating is that although the choice is basically the same, what is right is not.  The elders make the opposite decision from Dr. Stone.  Yet somehow the outcome is the same: survival.

Dr. Stone's crises comes because she is stranded in space with seemingly no hope left.  She's scared and she doesn't want to die.  But it seems inevitable.  In complete contrast to the elders, she mourns that she has no one to even pray for her, nor does she know how to pray herself because no one ever taught her how.  So, she resigns herself to her fate and depletes the oxygen supply to provide herself a quick, painless death.  But then something happens.  George Clooney's character (Matt Kowalski) shows up, talks some sense into her, and offers her a strategy to rescue herself.  It turns out that he was just a hallucination.  Or was he?

I have no idea how religious Cuaron is.  But there are definite spiritual themes in Gravity, so I'm going to take some liberty with my analysis.  Perhaps Kowalski was triggered simply by Dr. Stone's oxygen-deprived brain.  Or maybe he was an answer to Dr. Stone's unspoken prayer and God's way of speaking to her.  It doesn't seem too far-fetched of an analysis.  With renewed hope, Dr. Stone cranks up the O2 and talks to Kowalski as though he is now in heaven and gives him instructions to find her little girl (who died in an accident years ago).  And when Dr. Stone finally crash lands in the sea and at last makes it to shore, she offers a heavenward "Thank you."

Elders Probst and Tuttle also face imminent death.  They know that neither the Church, the US government, nor their families are going to pay the ransom (and they understand and accept the reasons why).  So when the opportunity to escape presents itself, they prepare to take it, even though the plan might very well lead to them having to kill one of their captors.  Both elders take their positions.  But then they stop.  Probst, who initiated the idea, feels he cannot go through with it.  The Spirit constrains him.  And although the choice is between life and death, they choose death.  All Probst really says is: "God has a plan for us."  Which of course He does and the elders are ultimately freed when their captors choose to be merciful and release them.

Though very different in many ways, both Gravity and The Saratov Approach are spiritually inspiring films.  They are more than films about survival; they are films about hope.

ISFS