Nicholas Steiner's Above and Below is a quasi-documentary that is both intimate and grandiose, documenting a series of individuals who are living on the fringes of society, desolate and alone in their own solitude. From a homeless couple who lives in the food channels under Sin City, to a single man who lives in an abandoned military bunker in the middle of the bare, California desert, Above and Below uses these, for lack of a better word, forsaken characters to create one of the most humanizing films I've seen in awhile, showing no judgement at all as the film truly captures the very essence of what it means to live as a human being. On the surface, none of these characters are particularly similar, especially April, who is participating in training for a Mars mission in the barren Utah desert, but as Above and Beyond progresses, the film reveals a lot of similarities between these characters beyond mere solitude, exhibiting how they are all humans with their own personal struggles, needs, regrets, desires and dreams. All these characters are outcasts in one way or another, each living a life of solitude in barren, secluded circumstances due primarily to rejection, with the filmmakers documenting their environment in a way that almost feels outer-worldly in its sadness. Above and Beyond exhibits humanities desire to accumulate knowledge and comprehend our own existence, being a film that one could argue is a meditation on existentialism in a sense, with each of the characters/ subjects' touching on their own spirituality or lack their of, as they try to comprehend the hand they have been dealt in life. Make no mistake, this is not a sob-story style film by any means, as some of these characters are empowered more so than anything, comfortable in their own skin regardless of their past regrets. Above and Beyond is extremely well crafted as well, a film that does a great job at exhibiting the beauty that can be found in conventionally ugly settings, a visual aesthetic that truly captures one of the film's themes centered around the uniformal aspects of humanity. Every frame in Above and Beyond is felt, with cinematography, editing, and sound that create an atmospheric tension around these characters' stories, ones that become quite touching and transfixing by the time the credits role. Nicholas Steiner's Above and Below is truly a singular existential vision, a film that manages to be deeply human while simultaneously feel grandiose and outer-worldly, a transfixing film that shouldn't be missed.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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