Having recently seen and reviewed J C Chandor's A Most Violent Year (2014) and only then realizing Candor was the author of 2011´s equally excellent Margin Call prompted me to look for his only film I hadn't seen and which upon release hadn't given rise to much curiosity on my part: All is Lost.
All is Lost is JC Chandor's 2nd, so by current reckoning “middle”, feature film. It is totally different from the other two but equally electrifying.
All is Lost tells the story of a man (Robert Redford, in maybe his best role ever) cruising the Indian Ocean in a small yacht who one day is woken up by water flooding the boat due, he immediately finds, to a collision with a strayed shipping container. The collision also wrecked the yachts´ radio equipment so he is confronted with the tasks of surviving, singlehandedly repairing the ship and searching for help in the midst of unforgiving tropical maritime weather, dwindling food and water reserves and deteriorating circumstances, all of which he confronts without self-pity or despair because he can't afford them. The film is magisterially bookended, but, contrary to The MacMahonian's standard policy of sacrificing plot surprises to exegesis, no spoiler this time.
The films consists of Redford alone, with next to no lines to say, facing wreckage, sea storms, capsized boats, sharks, sunburns, dehydration and – perhaps most harrowingly – gigantic container ships passing by unawares, whilst proceeding to do what can be done with a mixture of urgency, serenity and bewilderment: think Buster Keaton without the defiance. Soundtrack (mostly the sounds of the sea against the hull and of the wind against the sails) and camera placement (in and out of the yacht, above and under water) underscore dispassionately and relentlessly Redford's performance.
The MacMahonian jury is totally out on Chandor. He rules. Period. I can't wait for his forthcoming Deepwater Horizon, about the worst oil spill in US history, scheduled for general release September 2016.