While watching the film, I found this topic to be interesting: whether ‘Gravity’ should be considered a sci-fi movie or a drama. Cuaron doesn’t consider ‘Gravity’ to be a science fiction movie, yet some people believe that it should be categorized as a sci-fi genre.

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I’ve found a really nice analysis about the theme and the discussion about the movie’s genre online. Unfortunately, it’s in Chinese, and I don’t know if there is a way to create English subtitles. I’ll post it here and interpret the main idea about the film with my own thoughts:

Firstly, many of Cuaron’s movies all revolve around one specific theme: new life and birth. He isn’t trying to show us how powerful future technologies are using a sci-fi movie; instead, he tells us how great humanity is through the drama. In another sci-fi movie, ‘Children of Men,’ Theo Faron was involved in a mission to protect a miraculously pregnant woman who may hold the key to humanity’s survival. Moreover, there are plenty of plots and shots that are meant to serve this theme.

The rope – representing life

In the first half of the movie, Ryan and Matt went to the spaceport using a “rope” that looks like an umbilical cord that a newborn baby should have. The specific term for this rope is actually “Life Support Umbilical.” In the film, the rope is the connection between the person and the ability to stay alive. Ryan gets back to the spaceport using the rope, and Matt died because he released the rope. After Ryan gets into the spacecraft, we can see the Life Support Umbilical almost everywhere. For the sound effect, you may notice that when Matt and Ryan are fixing the spaceport, the sound is different from what we usually hear. This could be because Cuaron is trying to make the film more realistic since they are in space, but the “underwater” sound could also represent the amniotic fluid, showing that these astronomers are connected by an umbilical cord and “swim” within the amniotic fluid. Cuaron also filmed a shot of Ryan curling up in the spacecraft like a fetus for more than 30 seconds.

Based on these symbolizations, we can say that Ryan is actually a fragile fetus in space, trying hard to be born on Earth. Rather than considering the movie as being about an accident in space, let’s view this movie as a reflection of how difficult it can be for life to be born on Earth.

At the end of the movie, Ryan finally reaches the coast. What she says is “Thank you.” She isn’t saying that to Matt or the spacecraft that brought her back. She is expressing gratitude to the Earth, after grabbing some mud in her hand. Believing that life and birth are the real themes in the movie ‘Gravity’ does answer the question of why Cuaron included two extremely long shots of the Earth at the beginning and end of the film: this is a movie about life.