The problem with basing a movie on something that actually happened is that most people are going to know how it ends. While most movies based on historical wars or other large scale events can get around this by focusing on unknown facets or personal stories of people who played minor roles in the grand scheme of things, how do you put any surprises in the story about one guy who had to amputate his own arm? Interestingly enough, director Danny Boyle found a way. Literally all I knew going in to 127 Hours is that a climber gets trapped by a rock and has to cut off an appendage to escape his eventual death. Strangely, this foreknowledge actually made the anticipation and the emotion of the film’s imminent climax all the more intense, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
The film follows the novel ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place’ written by Aron Ralston, the mountaineer who survived the film’s central event in 2003. So that would make this the third time Ralston has experienced it, each time from a slightly different perspective. The film opens with a strange triptych of cycling images, most of which feature crowds of people moving through time-lapse photography. Soon, we focus in on Aron, played by James Franco, preparing for his weekend excursion in the darkness of night. The cinematography meticulously shows us just about everything Aron is taking with him, as well as a few items he leaves behind. After packing, and ignoring a phone call from his mother, Ralston drives out into the desert to Utah’s isolated Canyonlands National Park. Saturday begins with some mountain biking across the arid and rocky landscape as Ralston videotapes himself with a small digital camcorder. After a few hours, Aron leaves his bike behind and heads down a series of large rocks on foot, and runs into a pair of amateur hikers, who also happen to be cute girls and lost. Aron approaches Kristi (Kate Mara) and Megan (Amber Tamblyn) and offers to guide them through the canyon. He takes them through a narrow pass, informs them of the name of the canyon (Blue John Canyon) as well as it’s history as a hiding place for Butch Cassidy, and eventually leads them to a a large, underground pool. The group spends some time swimming and goofing off before parting ways. The girls invite Aron to a party later and give him some vague directions and tell him to look for a giant inflatable Scooby Doo to find the party.
After responding that he might go to the party, Aron heads off on his own, climbing through the canyon. While trying to lower himself down from the opening of the canyon, he puts his weight on a round rock that is a little larger than a beach ball and seems securely wedged into the surrounding formation. The rock gives way and tumbles down, along with Aron, to almost the bottom of the small canyon. Aron manages to catch himself, but the rock he accidentally pulled loose wedges itself between the narrow canyon walls and traps his right hand in the process. From this point on, we get to see an amazing series of events, all in one place and with a single actor holding up the entire story. One of the images from this film that will always stick with me is right after Aron is trapped and the initial freak out where he is smashing his shoulder into the boulder to try and shimmy it loose. Once he realizes that he is stuck, Aron begins to scream for help, calling for the two women with whom he had just been hiking. The camera looks down on Aron from above, and he throws his head back to yell. When he does, the view begins to lift out of the canyon, getting farther and farther away from him until the audience could no longer hear his cries, and all we could see was the vast and empty Utah landscape. This really hammered home a sense of isolation and hopelessness in a way that only a movie can. The real meat of the film consists of Aron’s efforts to free himself, keep track of his supplies and resources, wade through his thoughts memories that fade in and out between hallucinations, and even accept his inevitable fate, going so far as to carve his name, birth date, and death date into the canyon wall beside him and leave a far well message to his family via his digital camcorder. After the compressed six days, Aron does eventually find a way to liberate himself (and it is a traumatic series of images and sounds to absorb) but the best part of this film is Aron’s emotional journey between getting trapped and freeing himself, and Danny Boyle and James Franco do a brilliant job of bringing that struggle to life.
Comments
Post a Comment