Almost half-a-century has elapsed since the first man – Neil Armstrong – stepped on the moon.Irrespective of whether you were alive in 1969 to see the grainy footage on TV or, you, as a millennial, saw it on YouTube today, one thing cannot be ignored. Never before and never since has mankind taken pride as a single race without borders to a feat that can only be said as the greatest achievement in human history.
Director Damien Chazelle (La La Land and Whiplash) has taken the huge task of bringing this defining moment on the silver screen in First Man. The story documents the life of Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) and the years leading up to the Apollo mission.
Over a runtime of 2 hours and 18 minutes, the film unravels the tense moments of the space race, the men who lost their lives to fulfil mankind’s biggest dream and Neil’s intimate struggle after the death of his daughter.
The story of the film is a familiar one that almost everyone on the planet who has ever stepped foot into a school knows. The filmmaker’s brilliance lies in the way he has brought realism into it.
He puts us in Neil Armstrong’s shoes and takes us through the hundreds of hours of training, test flights and the terror of blasting off into the vastness of space inside claustrophobic rickety spacecraft that could have broken apart any moment.
The creaks from the cabin, warning lights and buzzers flashing incomprehensible messages and beeps only add to the sense of danger.
The film’s triumphant moment is a majestic 15-minute silent sequence starting from the time Apollo 11 blasts off into space and the point when Armstrong sets foot on the Moon – left boot first and utters the words forever etched in time – “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Everyone in the cinema theatre collectively held their breath at this point.
The star of the show, Ryan Gosling, has churned out a brilliantly understated performance, showing the mental struggle and fortitude it took to achieve this great feat. Gosling has brilliantly portrayed Armstrong’s composure in the tense moments where one bad decision could send them hurtling uncontrollably into space and lost forever.
If one nitpicks, the small chink in the brilliant film is that it seems to be needlessly extended after the moon landing. Those not inclined to docu / drama-type films might also feel that it is slow.
That being said, the movie is something that needed to be slow for us to observe and wonder at the details. It is a peek into the mettle of men / women of the past. The daring spirit to constantly push boundaries and ask questions of what is beyond is needed today. This movie is an exercise in time and man’s greatest triumph that needs to be re-lived.