If you haven’t seen Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity yet, stop what you’re doing and go see it. It’s the gut-wrenching story of an astronaut lost in space that will leave you breathless. Jonas Cuaron, the son of the director, has his own short-film tie-in to Gravity, with all the chilling emotion and nuance of the feature film it’s linked to.
Seriously though, if you haven’t seen Gravity, beware: there be spoilers ahead.
It’s called Aningaaq after the main character of the same name. If you remember the events of Gravity, you’ll recall when Sandra Bullock’s character, Dr. Ryan Stone was trapped in a Souyuz spacecraft with no fuel and a dwindling oxygen supply.
She reaches out to the radio and begins tuning it to any frequency she can find with people on it, looking for Mission Control. What she finds is a man named Aningaaq. We heard the conversation from her perspective in the film, and Jonas Cuaron is now giving us the events that transpired on the ground, and a translation of what Aningaaq was saying.
It’s an emotional story of a family man fishing in a fjord. He’s troubled by his favourite dog who is sick. He doesn’t have the heart to put her down, and during the conversation, he manages to soothe his restless child. It’s heartbreaking to hear Ryan Stone alone and losing hope, as this man sings to his child, oblivious to her plight.
The film ends with Aningaaq losing the connection with the Souyuz craft containing Dr Stone, and pans up to show the Space Station burning up in the atmosphere like a terrifyingly beautiful shooting star. [First Showing]