Angels and Airwaves Presents: Love (William Eubank, 2011): USA

Reviewed by Laura Horstmann. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.

It’s a tough goal to make both a visually entertaining and emotionally striking movie with a cast of one but William Eubank achieved and surpassed that goal in “Angels and Airwaves Presents: LOVE”.  Driven by a powerful score composed by the band “Angels and Airwaves”, Love is an immersive visual and audial experience that paints a perfect portrait of the vitality of human connection.

Gunner Wright plays astronaut Lee Miller who loses contact with earth for seven years while aboard the International Space Station.  As time goes by, Lee falls deeper and deeper into his own mind and the audience follows him on his journey into complete and total isolation.  While both his hope and resources are dwindling, Lee discovers the journal of a civil war soldier whose own journey and mindset seems to parallel his own.

For such a small budget, the film held it’s own stylistically. With no character interaction the set of the movie became a second character as Lee’s relation to it shifted. What was once his home now became his prison and Eubank’s direction skillfully showed that. The space station it’s self was built in the director’s parent’s driveway using everything from Christmas lights to pizza boxes and Despite it’s humble materials, it came out extremely realistic and aided tremendously in claustrophobically trapping both Lee and the audience.

Lee holds onto his sanity and life by watching prerecorded video messages over and over and creating characters in his mind based off of photographs. He finds shards of hope in these constructed relationships and they give him the strength to stay alive. Lee’s story is briefly interrupted by several short interviews throughout the movie. These interviews provide a segue to the film’s central question, “Is a life without someone to share it with really a life at all?”  and I think the director did an excellent job answering that question. The only thing that keeps us human is each other.

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Published:
02.13.11 / 2pm
Category:
Films, Santa Barbara Film Festival 2011