Danny Boyle is back with a new movie for 2011 and this one, in my humble opinion, is one of his better ones. It goes by the name of 127 Hours and tells the true story of Aron Ralston, a particularly obsessed climber and canyoner who on an excursion unfortunately finds himself trapped between a rock and a hard place, also known as a very large rock and a smaller yet still immovable rock.
Incidentally the name of the book in which this movie bases itself on is named ‘Between a rock and a hard place’ by Mr Ralston himself. I haven’t read the book but after watching the movie version of the tale I am definitely more inclined to do so now.
You might already know the premise to this movie but I’ll throw in a spoiler warning now as maybe you don’t. I was under the impression everyone knew about this story already but my brother didn’t have a clue, he didn’t even know Boyle directed it, a position I am particularly envious of as it would have been a totally different experience if you didn’t already know the story.
But hey, that’s the sign of a good movie I think, knowing what will happen, but still being transfixed by the narrative. The film has one main character, Aron, and most of the scenes feature just him on his own, as you’d expect. This impressed me more than anything about this movie. It’s a brave move by any director let alone one who has realistically only just broken into the big league.
Aron is played by James Franco, always good to see him in a movie, even if it is Spiderman 3. This is the best performance I’ve seen from him, and if I’m honest, it’s as good a performance as any Oscar winner in recent history. To play out these scenes, and really get to grips with the character he’s playing must have been gruelling and also incredibly lonely. With no one to bounce off, he was totally on his own out there and he nailed it, making the movie seem more real and allowing the audience to really connect with the character.
Surprisingly, Aron ends up trapped early on in the movie, you don’t have to wait very long at all. Upon climbing over a seemingly stable rock above a small narrow canyon the rock gives way under his weight and he drops down with it and lands with the rock crushing his right arm against the wall of the crevice. Ouch.
At first he is remarkably calm about the situation and attempts to free himself, but he soon learns that this rock will not be moving anytime soon. From that point we really get to delve into not just Aron’s psyche, but the human psyche. He has moments of panic, anger, frustration, sorrow, guilt, despair and something that sticks out is that as he goes through it all, he does so with a sense of humour, trying to keep his spirits up.
During his 127 hours down there, he chronicles it all with his trusty video camera, sometimes sombrely addressing his parents and sister, other times monologuing about his life. There is one particular scene where he splits his personality in half, playing around in a fantasy morning radio wake-up show. One half, Aron, playing the morning show host, the other half, Aron playing, well, Aron. This scene sounds stupid, and yet it isn’t, you get to see a man really come to terms with himself, seeing his faults literally being thrown in his face by no one but himself.
Aron is a bit of a loner, in that he doesn’t mix well with others. He rarely sees his parents, something he clearly begins to regret and feel guilty about. Because of this loneliness he has told nobody where he’s gone, so rescue from this situation is not going to happen. There are several flashbacks and visions that we get to see, involving Aron and his family mainly, but also a lost love too, all of it adds to the character’s depth, to a degree.
After trying every feasible option trying to move his adversary from his arm, Aron all but gives up, but an epiphany makes him realise that there is really only one option left if he wants to survive this horrible mess. Yep, if you didn’t know already, his only choice is to cut off his arm, and it’s not for the faint hearted.
It’s not particularly gory, but it’s more brutal than other gory movies because this is real. Kill Bill for example: it’s not real, it’s a bit of jovial fun and because of which you’re instantly desensitized. 127 Hours however is real, and that’s why it’s brutal. He doesn’t even have a sharp knife, he literally has to hack and chop his arm off using a poorly made (in China) blunt knife he got free with a flashlight.
As he’s doing it you literally sit there in awe at the human will to just survive. That’s what this movie is all about: just how far people will go to survive. He gets to the all but final point where he comes up against a string of nerve tissue, and honestly I was in a cold sweat. He touches it and upon doing so Boyle treats us to an ear piercing screech of white noise as he writhes in pain. It’s an odd experience to watch, as obviously I’ve never encountered that pain before and yet when he touches it and ultimately rips through it, you can recognise the pain! Argh it’s going through me just thinking about it!
Yeah, enough of that, but yes this scene isn’t just about the gory horror of it, Boyle portrays it as a sort of redemption moment for Aron. He’s gone through all this, realised things about himself, and now it’s time for him to break free and make a change, liberating himself from his stony tomb.
However, it’s not a totally flawless movie though. It’s not really made clear to us how he became such a reclusive jerk. In his flashbacks we see him with his parents and sister having genuine good times, then all of a sudden he’s with a girlfriend who ‘can’t get the combination to his heart’, man, I hate that cliché. Why does he suddenly become reclusive? It shows him getting dumped without a care in the world. Why? Please tell us movie. It doesn’t, you just have to go with it. That’s the only thing that wasn’t that great for me, it just wasn’t explained.
Overall though, it’s a great movie and a truly brilliant story that is brought to life fantastically by Danny Boyle. This one wont get as much praise as Slumdog Millionaire, but it should do as it’s so much better. The cinematography is good, the camerawork, the screenplay, the dialogue and pace all works well. There’s a few instances in the film where Boyle almost presumes you know the story already, things like the Swiss army knife at the beginning that he cant find, it‘s quite clever.
It’s not so much the story that’s great, it’s the narrative and the way it’s told. Another thing that’s good about this movie is the soundtrack, in that it barely exists! A flaw you might say, but it isn’t. It just adds to the realism of the situation. This guy is seriously in the middle of nowhere, totally on his own.
I can’t even comprehend what it must have been like for Aron Ralston going through that, not many will relate but that’s not what it’s there for. The closest thing I can come up with that relates to what he went though was when I was five years old and I got my arm trapped in the door of a bus.
I didn’t have to hack my arm off mind you, but I did lose the Jaffa Cake I was holding. So I’d say we’re about even.
Final Verdict: 4 Stars.
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