All is Lost (Film Review)

In a way All is Lost could be considered a silent film.  Just as The Artist was a silent film about talking, this is a talking film about silence.  Silence from the stranded protagonist, silence from any sort of help, silence from miles of nothing but ocean; its beauty permeating the eyes, its horrors forcing them shut.  It’s fascinating how the ocean’s far reaching vastness, uncontrollable power, bottomless depths, and large array of life can bring a human to become captivated by it but at the same time terrified of what it’ll do; a theme All is Lost embraces with a beautiful mixture of artistry and craft.

The film begins with some of the only heard dialogue; an unnamed man (Robert Redford) writing a confessional letter to some unknown people.  To him the letter might as well be his will; he’s been struggling and fighting for over eight days to survive at sea after his boat met an unlikely accident.  He writes how he’s tried hard to survive and apologizes, stating that “all is lost” at the end of the message.  This brings the film back 8 days earlier where we see the slow decent of this man desperately trying to survive a series of disastrous events where everything, including God himself, seems to want him dead.

Indeed God could have everything to do with this film, or perhaps religion is the last thing being said here.  All is Lost invites (or more so, forces) the audience to come up with their own interpretations on what exactly is going on.  This is accomplished through various ambiguous means.

Besides the opening monologue, there is minimal talking done in All is Lost.  The man rarely speaks to himself and when he does it’s mostly through grunts and swears at his horrible predicament.  The man appears to be familiar with being alone; rarely finding the need to express himself or talk out loud to keep company.  In fact one scene he’s force to call an SOS through his radio and it seems that since he talks so little that his voice comes out rather cracked and weak when first speaking.

All is Lost beats out Gravity as this year’s film with the least characters (in this film’s case, a one man show).  Robert Redford plays the only seen character in the entire film, yet we known very little about this man.  Who is he?  Did/does he have a family or friends?  What was his life prior to this?  Heck what’s his personality like?  We know nothing about the man except that he’s boat savvy and possesses a “tough to quit” attitude.  For all the audience knows this unnamed protagonist could have very well been some sort of horrible person or even a criminal (it’s never elaborated on whether the man is apologizing in his letter for giving up after fighting so long or for some other past mistake(s) he’s made).

Yet we feel sympathy for this man, caught up in a sequence of unfortunate events that just seem to get worse and worse as the film progresses.  It doesn't entirely matter to the viewer who he was before and the film itself seems unconcerned with past events.  All that matters is the story being told now, but what ultimately is the movie about? 

Indeed its ambiguous nature leaves the audience with more than a few ways to interpret the film.  Could All is Lost be in fact a religious metaphor?  Maybe this man (who just seems to wake up in the middle of everything) has died and these events are his trials through purgatory; his ultimate journey to see if he can survive and make it to the pearly gates (the ending of the film definitely gives off this sort of vibe).

Of course this is just one interpretation out of many.  Maybe the film is simply about a man trying to survive at seas, or perhaps the film tells a tale about tradition vs. electronics?  Every time electronics and advanced technology are involved the man’s situation seems to get worse and worse.  The first scene involves his navigation system being destroyed, placing him in a temporary helpless situation where he has no clue of his location.  It’s not until he learns how to use a non-electronic sextant (thanks to a navigation book no less) that he takes back some control over nature and begins jotting down his course and location.

Technology just seems to fail him one way or another throughout the film.  Twice he is passed by cargo ships that perhaps might have noticed his signal flares had they had multiple men on watch duty; but thanks to new age electronic navigation the need for men to be stationed around the clock has become unnecessary.  It’s only when our sole character learns to use and rely on older survival tactics that his chances of survival increase (even if it’s ever so slightly); using condensation to acquire fresh water and creating an actual fire in place of flares to try and catch a ships attention.  Yet, even in those situations there a sense that perhaps all is indeed lost; and the final scene leaves it awfully ambiguous as to whether or not it truly was. 

Beyond all the guessing and interpretation, this is first and foremost a rather beautiful film.  Such effort and craftsmanship was clearly placed when creating All is Lost.  It takes both a great director and a great actor to create a film with only one person and nearly no dialogue yet make it not only watchable but highly entertaining as well. 

Every so often, All is Lost would give an under the water look at the surface.  Each time would have a different set of creatures swimming underwater, along with different forms of musical tones.  There are many different ways audiences could interpret what this symbolizes for the film, and they each mostly likely have their own merit; but it’s the beauty of the bitter-sweet music and of the vast, deadly ocean that captures their attention in the first place, and brings them to wonder.