4 times. In theatres. Within a month and half.

This movie made me come back to the theatres like never before. I don’t think I have done this for any other movie.

The production quality of this movie is right at the top. It’s probably the best produced movie by Hollywood this year.

When I saw the trailer of the movie a few months ago, I had told my friend (and movie buddy) that this one is a theatre watch and we had to watch it in IMAX. But what I didn’t realize back then was that I would end up watching it a number of times in the theatre itself.

Title Card

As they Tamil saying goes “Oru paanai sothukku oru soru padam” (You may know by a handful the whole) – when I saw the title card it clearly conveyed what you can expect from the rest of 2+ hours of movie. A complete high quality production that’s truly authentic and feels absolutely as real as possible.

Here’s the title card scene:

It’s very likely that this movie will win an Oscar for Cinematography.

Let’s just look at the shot that shows the circuit. A drone shot that shows the circuit from far off. And the drone slowly moves closer to the circuit. And you don’t see the car until very late. You start hearing the sound of the car doing laps. And suddenly the car appears.

And we all know how fast F1 cars are. During the shot the car was probably doing 180-200 mph.

As the car appears out of nowhere all of a sudden, the drone shot seamlessly transitions to a high speed shot where the camera is seamlessly tracking the speed at which the car is going.

I don’t know how they got this idea and executed it – it’s probably a combination of multiple shots and some brilliant editing. But as an audience I simply felt wow at this moment itself.

Timestamp 1:29 in the video – the pan shot. This was so amazing to watch in the big screen. How the camera seamlessly pans from the front view to the rear view. This pan shot was used a few times in the whole movie and it used to appear all of a sudden during tense moments in the race showing both the driver’s perspective (front) and the driver’s reaction (focusing in the face of Brad Pitt).

What blew my mind about the cinematography was this – you obviously have to shoot the film in 4K and for IMAX which requires pretty heavy camera rigs. And an F1 car is the complete opposite of “heavy”. There is no way you could mount heavy camera rigs to shoot all those perspectives from the car. And it clearly showed that they had mounted cameras on the car to give us those perspectives.

Here’s behind the scenes video where the team talks about developing custom cameras in collaboration with Sony to bring out those awesome shots.

The Score

What an amazing score by Hans Zimmer!! The main theme that was played in the Title Card is so captivating. This main theme is played again after the end credits roll – you need to wait out for about 2-3 minutes for the theme to play again. Every time I saw this movie, I made sure I stayed for the end credits and heard the theme once again in the theatre’s sound system.

It’s kind of dangerous to play this theme in your car while you are driving – you literally feel like Sonny Hayes and might start racing on the road 🙂

Similarly the score during the final lap where Sonny Hayes feels “flying”, the score that comes right after he wins the race and the team starts celebrating took the movie to a different level.

To me, Interstellar is the best work of Hans Zimmer. This comes next.

Real IMAX Experience

When I saw the movie in IMAX in Chennai, I wished if I had the chance to see it in IMAX in the US. The IMAX that we have in India (except the Prasad labs one in Hyderabad) all have screens that have rectangular aspect ratio. This is very different from the proper IMAX theatres where the screen is more square-ish and seating arrangements are different with more vertical seats (where your knees are literally right above the head of the person sitting in front of you).

Those proper IMAX theatres are built for IMAX from the grounds up and they give a much better experience.

Every time I come to the US, the first thing that I look for is if there is a proper IMAX theatre nearby and if some great movie is being played (my unfulfilled wish so far is watching Interstellar in a 70mm film proper IMAX).

As luck would have had it, I was in the US last week and had some time over the weekend. And I saw F1 was being played at a proper IMAX near to my cousin’s place where I was staying.

I and my nephew went to watch it in IMAX. My nephew is about 17 years old, he had seen already once and wanted to see it once more in IMAX – such is the impact this movie has had on people 🙂

When compared to the IMAX we have in India, the screen didn’t make much of a difference. But the sound quality was definitely a few notches up. We managed to get seats in the absolute center of the theatre to get the perfect sound experience. The main difference is the clarity of the sound where you are able to hear even the slightest of the sounds. It totally was worth it!!

What about the movie? The plot?

It’s a standard commercial movie plot. You literally know how the movie is going to end – that Sonny Hayes will win the race. It was also a giant commercial for Apple products (white themed interiors and suits, visibly placed Apple Mac Studio, Apple Monitors and what not) and Expensify, T-mobile, etc…

But despite that, it’s a movie that will make you watch it a few times – for the sheer production quality. How real it felt on screen is something that can be experienced only in theatres.

A month and half later, as I walked into a theatre in Chennai yesterday, the movie is still being played and people are still watching it.

If the movie is still running in a theatre near you and you haven’t watched it yet – go and watch it. An IMAX preferably. You will absolutely be blown away!

ps: I haven’t been following F1 since 2004. 7-8 seconds pit stops were considered perfection back then. I couldn’t believe that they have got it down to 2.5 seconds these days. While reading out pit stops, found this amazing video that explains the precision and engineering behind those 2.5 seconds pit stops – in slow motion. Do give it a watch if you are interested!