Venice – US director Terrence Malick’s spectacular “Voyage of Time” premieres at the Venice film festival Wednesday, seeking to tell the story of the universe in an ambitious feature that is competing for the Golden Lion.
The feast of galactic spaces, cosmic matter and Earth’s most mesmerising landscapes and creatures are set to compositions by classical music masters Bach and Mahler.
Malick, of “The Tree of Life” fame (2011), spent over a decade working on his latest feat, which was made with a team of scientists and special effects artists lead by Dan Glass, who worked on “Batman Begins” and “The Matrix Reloaded”.
The film is narrated by Cate Blanchett – in a philosophical rather than explanatory role – while a 45-minute IMAX version will also be released, narrated by Brad Pitt.
Blanchett is heard repeatedly, almost obsessively, asking nature to tell us the answers to questions such as “Who are you? Life giver? Light bringer?” The work is a patchwork of images, from erupting volcanoes to the divisions of microscopic cells, with footage stitched in of humans today, capturing our loves, traditions, weaknesses and exploitation of the planet.
Photography from the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA’s interplanetary space probes and the Solar Dynamic Observatory – a satellite observing the sun – are mixed with eye-popping visual effects.
Glass and his team were briefed on the latest theories about the solar system but had to create the astrophysical imagery and invent the first unicellular forms of life themselves.
“We used everything from gels and glass to smoke machines and fluid tanks to create a whole range of effects,” Glass said in a statement released to the media.
“We performed chemical experiments to see how various liquids, dyes, gases and fluids might behave as we filmed them at high speed. It was a lot of fun to do and very in tune with how Terry’s mind works,” he said.
Capturing the oddest creatures from the darkest oceans corners on huge IMAX cameras also posed unique technical difficulties.
While to get his images of humans today, Malick handed out tiny, lo-fi Harinezumi digital cameras to people around the planet and pored through the footage.
The music, from Mahler’s Symphony no. 2, “Resurrection”, to the 20th Century minimalist composer Avro Part and jazz pianist Keith Jarrett, plays out as the soundtrack to life.
