Survivalist stories, across sea, land and scape, do not come grittier than the real life ordeal of the astronauts aboard 'Apollo 13'. Forced to jettison all baggage and left with just enough to sustain, devoid of even minimum power requirements to maintain their capsule barely above freezing temperatures and still found wanting for a measly few amperes to help them reenter into earth's atmosphere, 'Apollo 13' mission was a disaster in every which way before it was turned around into a remarkable survival sojourn in space, thanks in large parts to the grit of men up above coupled with the great ingenuity of the NASA engineers on the ground, working in tandem with little more than nothing, stitching up solutions and making up maneuvers as they went by. Only in the face of certain death do the creative juices flow at their best helping the human spirit to soar over hitherto unchartered territories and to dizzying heights. The same screenwriter (of 'Apollo 13') later took his tale to sea and threw his leading man on a deserted island that had so little of anything but a glut of coconut trees (which as the protagonist laments was ironically 'a great natural laxative'). 'Cast Away' probably didn't have either the immediacy or the urgent danger of 'Apollo 13', and the sense of isolation in such desolation might not kill a person right away, but it is certain to drive a person insane over a period of time. Isn't that what they say about people lost in far away places, that most of them die in shame or shock than truly because of the surroundings? Now take the isolation of 'Cast Away' and add to it the razor edge precision surviving in space of 'Apollo 13', here is 'The Martian', left for dead a few million miles away from breathable air and yet lived to tell the tale more than a year later. This is one spirit that, even with the entire universe conspiring together, could barely restrain.

When Tom Hanks buoyed by the success of 'Apollo 13' commissioned the screenwriter Bill Broyles Jr., this time to banish him to sea, and see how a smart man could survive on his wits in such trying and treacherous waters, the story went that Bill first contacted eminent survivalists in the country to pick their brains about how anyone could survive on near nothing, starting from finding food during the initial days to eventually making his own food till help arrived. 'The Martian', based on a novel by Andy Weir, takes similar approach. After the initial shock of finding himself alone on the desolate planet, the astronaut sets to work taking stock of his current rations, portioning them till immediate future and devising plans for future sustenance until his SOS signal echoed back with hope. That the tone of the film is pretty light for the life of the astronaut to be in any real sense of danger/death, makes 'The Martian' a frothy fare in the survivalist genre, probably next to 'Gilligan's Island'. What is also interesting is Ridley Scott's take on it keeping the proceedings in the same tongue in cheek fashion (however much serious the science of surviving and escaping from Mars is), a radical departure from his usual grim, locked brow, tight upper lipped tenor (quietly usurping his previous entertaining feature 'Matchstick Men' in the process). And marching in step are the witty zingers and one-liners, the foot tapping disco interludes and a stellar cast that has signed up merrily for the ride. Consider the delicate balance that Scott had to pull off - the genre is pretty grim, the science is pretty serious, the rescue mission is near accurate and somehow everything around it is sunny and funny, for, even a small misstep here would have easily veered the movie off into parody territory. This is one impressive trapeze feat.

checkout http://kanchib.blogspot.com for Srinivas's Blog.