127 Hours
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127 Hours
Director: Danny Boyle
Writers: Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy
Stars:James Franco, Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara
Kristi: "I don't think we figured in his day at all."
Writers: Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy
Stars:James Franco, Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara
Kristi: "I don't think we figured in his day at all."
More of a disguise of self-examination, a narration filled with existential ideas than a survival horror film. Boyle approaches fate's diabolical plan with Aron's digital camera and an actor who masterfully divides, with the use of a split screen, his horror, anger on the right to his endurance, humor and ambitions on the left.
Boyle's videoclipistic, digital filmmaking breaks on through to the other side of the canyon, frantically leading us, through the eyes of a man named Aron Ralston to a dark and lonely place where he comes to a halt. Music and rhythm halt alongside with him. For a few moments he balances between reality and a nightmare. He is actually pinned by a rock. His right hand is harrowingly immobile.
The realization of the extreme situation doesn't surprise as he comes to terms with what can be considered as a new home.
Revealed in what seemed a string of thoughts that every step on the road requires a sacrifice, the narrow ravine traps a man who's always on the move and make him face the adverse consequences when losing your physical mobility.
Every ingenious plan of his, every hopeful thought delves him deeper in this well of madness, every hallucinatory dream draws him closer to his natural survival insticts, the ambition and hope to be able to come near an experience once again.
Utilizing every little corner of the claustrophobic ravine, the filmmaker energizes the pace out of an almost impossible stillness of events, electrifying it through the use of his hyper editing method, flashbacks and disoriented flash-forwards. In a delirium of imagery, he sidesteps in front of the phantasm of predicament indicating euphorically to the viewer that the almost impossible is possible.
James Franco carries the weight of the entire movie, portraying a carefree man transformed to an intelligent beast, mentally fragile but eager to survive. Franco's backpack is full of passion and determination and while the plot lacks suspense ( because the outcome is already known) he makes up for it with his engrossing performance, clueing us the trauma like it is a completely new sensation.
The quicksand of his entrapment tensed by the urgency of the alarming situation, desperation and anger collapse over the boulder of his earthy limitations, Aron just cannot lift, move or chip away the rock that is keeping him dormant.
The eternal struggle of body and mind is one long crescendo, a rumbling of bad conscience and last confessions while he slowly drifts away, closing in to the inevitable climax.
The artistic innovation needed for the amputation scene was a trademark of one of the most unique directors of this generation of cinema, Danny Boyle. He chose life again.
