Last year, writer-director
Darren Aronofsky continued his environmentalist streak launched by his divisive
2014 blockbuster Noah with inarguably
his most controversial work to date, mother!,
a kind of loose and frequently transgressive allegory for Mother Earth’s
connection with God. That film, led by
actress Jennifer Lawrence and actor Javier Bardem, tragically tanked at the box
office and left audiences split into hyperbolic extremes of unadulterated love
and hate. Worse still, the film garnered
Razzie nominations and remains a work that either enthralls or enrages
moviegoers alike. As for myself, it was
one of the best films of 2017 that few people saw and one which has only grown
more brilliant and beautiful with time.
While cinephiles were left
stumped by Aronofsky’s uncompromising vision of Earth as a living thing with
thoughts and feelings, the writer-director however remained busy by shifting
his focus away from the silver screen into what is quickly becoming the new
stomping ground for artistic and creative freedom: television. Last year saw David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return unfold not so
much as another season of television, but as a grand cinematic event unleashed
upon the small screen. Later this year
we shall see Danish writer-director Nicolas Winding Refn’s upcoming Amazon
series Too Old to Die Young, but not
before Aronofsky teamed up with National Geographic and eight astronauts to
create what is probably the most obvious companion piece to mother! as well as the first time
audiences were given a glimpse into what nature shows like Planet Earth would look and sound like with an auteur behind it: One Strange Rock.
Some of the episodes, for instance, seem to draw directly from some of Aronofsky’s previous works such as the fifth episode, Survival, which focuses on death and rebirth. Those who recall his third feature The Fountain with special effects shots of backdrops that are deliberately repetitious in their movement, will notice similar techniques being utilized while the show’s original score co-produced by Zedd and Daniel Pemberton sounds very like Clint Mansell’s mournful closing notes to the 2006 film. Equally compelling and closest to Aronofsky’s previous works is the second episode, Storm, which plays like the subliminally edited creationism montage in Noah in slow motion. Images of an asteroid turning the surface of the Earth into a warzone alongside some truly cinematic imagery of freediving in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico left by a centuries-ago asteroid will also remind some viewers of Hugh Jackman’s levitating cosmonaut in The Fountain.
What sets Aronofsky’s
National Geographic series apart from other nature shows which have come and
gone before it are the emotions the writer-director taps into, evoking
everything from awe, fear, sadness and elation.
The footage itself intercut with Aronofsky’s trademark visual effects
transitions is undoubtedly stunning with some saying the series works
beautifully with the sound turned off.
But it’s how Aronofsky marries it with context and tonality that make
this National Geographic series among the very first to openly draw an emotional
response from the viewer. Over the
course of all ten episodes, the writer-director manages to hit every emotional
note and create not just a mere fascination with the world around us but a
feeling about it as well.
Beginning on March 26th
of this year and having wrapped up its tenth episode this past Monday, in
summation One Strange Rock is an
extraordinary nature documentary series.
Like the director’s mother!,
in theory and arguably in practice it forces the viewer to rethink the world
around them, their place in it and ponder the possibilities of life beyond
it. Moreover, it presents a rare
opportunity to see what a feature filmmaker with distinctive stylistic flourishes
can do with a nature show. In a time
when the ever beautiful Planet Earth
series seems to spawn an endless series of like-minded nature documentaries
which more or less present viewers with the same images captured from different
angles, its refreshing to see the job handed to someone like Darren Aronofsky
whose transition from the big screen to the small one is at once breathtaking
and radical. One can only hope more
shows like it with a filmmaker’s eye behind it happen again in our lifetime.
Score:
- Andrew Kotwicki