Elevation, at first glance, is a post-apocalyptic action film. Upon closer inspection, the story reveals hidden layers. The subtext poses existential questions about humanity itself.
Action fans will appreciate the trio of leads trying to survive against monsters known as Reapers. These reapers hunt humans who dare to leave the safety of their mountain encampments. For unknown reasons, Reapers only hunt up to an altitude of 8000 ft.
Anthony Mackie stars as Will, a single father desperate to secure medical supplies for his sick son. Morena Baccarin plays Nina, an alcoholic scientist trying to uncover a scientific breakthrough to defeat the Reapers. Maddie Hasson completes the trio as Katie, a woman with a tumultuous past and a knack for handling heavy weaponry.
Director George Nolfi opened up about the technical details of Elevation, as well as the deeper subtext of the story.
This Elevation interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
LadyJenevia: It appeared as though you used a fair bit of handheld camera work. What was it about this technique that you deemed to be the right fit for Elevation?
Nolfi: There’s not as much handheld as as there is Steadicam. Our Steadicam operator was incredible, and rides on Segways down places, in mines and so on and so forth. There’s a little bit of handheld. It’s really the idea to be with the characters as they’re moving through spaces.
Locations are very important to me. This movie has some pretty extraordinary places that haven’t been put on film, like the huge mine. That is a real mine that we were able to film. The ski lift, and so forth, and so in order to capture that and put you into the experience of moving through those spaces that you don’t get to move through in normal life, having the camera be able to walk or run with a character is very important.
LadyJenevia: Elevation explores big existential ideas about humankind and Humanity itself, which we get to see through how characters deal with losing more or less everything. As a storyteller, were you aiming to ask these questions of the audience or tell the audience something about humankind?
Nolfi: I don’t think films do a good job of telling you how to think but I think they do a great job of raising questions. I’m glad that you saw that, that you didn’t just look at it as an action thriller horror movie.
What was interesting to me at the really deepest level is that our brains are incredible. The human brain is this incredible thing that’s created all this civilisation around me, including the window washer out and the big cities behind me. They’re our greatest asset and yet they can be our complete undoing, which…
I don’t want to spoil the sort of twist there at the end but I think if you think about what that twist means, in terms of what the human brain can do or what an intelligent life form can do, it raises questions that are that much more important with what’s happened with A.I. in the last year.
LadyJenevia: Morena Baccarin’s character Nina says a line that I found interesting, about horses. Is the subtext of that line a clue about the origins of the Reapers?
Nolfi: The subtext is… when we start the movie they’re in a kind of Garden of Eden, a setting with no humans around, with no technology. The Garden of Eden comes back up and that reinforces this thematic idea about, ‘How much good do our brains do and how much bad?’
LadyJenevia: I really liked the practical details of the world of Elevation. Can you share a little bit about the vision for the film’s production design and costuming? For example, I really loved Moron’s… I think it was like a patchwork robe? I thought it was really cute. I would have gotten that from a store.
Nolfi: I’ve worked with the same costume designer now for the last three movies, Aieisha Li. I will not be able to work with her again because she passed away since we made the film, which is really sad. She came to me and said, what do you think about… this character’s a little crazy even though she’s brilliant, right? [Li] was like, what do you think about something that almost… you could imagine a larger than life, sort of homeless person patching together from stuff. I looked at what she came up with and yeah, I agree with you. That’s one of my favourite things in the movie.
Production design wise, it’s driven by locations from me. We looked to find a town in a real place in in Colorado that could be the Refuge, with dirt roads and all the stuff that we could move our camera through and between and have our actors come inside and out of then. Then the production design is driven off that realism.
I always try to do things as realistic as you can, given the premise of the movie.
LadyJenevia: Well thank you so much for your time, George. Congratulations on the film. I was pleasantly surprised by it and I definitely have my theories about the subtext and the origins of the Reapers.
Nolfi: Keep asking the questions and I’m happy.
Watch my full interviews with Elevation star Maddie Hasson and director George Nolfi here:
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