The Man Without Gravity

Oscar is born without gravity. His mother and grandmother raise him at home so nobody sees him, a childhood of weights, ropes and closed curtains. When he grows up and goes outside he finds the world wants him either as a miracle or as a spectacle. Marco Bonfanti wrote and directed. Elio Germano plays the adult Oscar, and the film went out as one of Netflix's early Italian productions. It is a fable rather than science fiction. Why gravity does not apply is never explained, and by refusing to explain it the film moves the subject elsewhere: hiding what is different, then exploiting it. The visual solutions are kept simple. The floating scenes were largely done with cranes and wires, with as little digital work as possible. Germano's performance holds it up; the character's exhaustion constantly contradicts the lightness of the floating body. Who it is for: viewers who like poetic fable and Italian auteur cinema. Who it is not for: anyone wanting rules; the film never explains its own logic.