Most of my thoughts are still jingling around so much that it's hard to pull anything out, but one thing I can say that I haven't seen anyone post yet is- the cinematography LIES to you and it's fucking amazing.
They're trying to convey the horror of being trapped in this submarine, and knowing anything could go wrong at any moment, and we've seen leaks and "condensation" pretty much as soon as the film begins.
In most movies, if the camera stops and goes out of it's way to focus on something: it's telling you, "pay attention to this. something is about to happen with this."
But in Iron lung? there are SO many shots that suddenly cut away from mark, or where he's standing in the background, and our focus is on parts of the submarine itself. and your brain, which has seen movies, goes "that's about to break. that's about to break or leak or start making noise, something is about to happen to this part of the ship" and then....that just, doesn't happen. at least, not yet.
they're CONSTANTLY reminding you that the ship could critically fail, tricking you into thinking maybe it will right now, and then it doesn't, but failures DO happen throughout so the trick keeps working on you and you keep wondering when something is going to give.
it keeps you locked onto the screen and it keeps you on edge, even in "quiet" scenes where things are supposedly safe for a while. You never feel at ease, you never breathe a sigh of relief. it's a CONSTANT tension that never lets up, no matter how well things seem to be going for Simon. Until that glorious catharsis at the end of the film where the horror has reached it's peak and it's over can you actually relax, but at that point- if you're anything like me- the movie as a whole has sent you reeling and you can't even fully articulate what's happened to you in that theatre.
