The Case for 127 on the 22nd

It seemed very bad timing and a bit insensitive to be going to a movie (at all) about a man who gets trapped for days and is forced to resort to desperate measures to free himself considering that, a few hours before, the devastating earthquake of 22 February 2011 struck. But despite the news, the queues to the ticket counters were decidedly healthy. Still, we were a little late getting to the film as we watched the coverage of what was unfolding in the Garden City - with the odd wince when TVNZ decided the images could not speak for themselves and put on some nauseatingly overwrought music to accompany the powerful visuals.

The opening visuals of 127 Hours proved frenetic enough to snap me away from the reality of now to the reality of then. Danny Boyle seemed to be using leftover footage from Slumdog Millionaire to grab people's attention, bright lights and louder shirts flashing on the trisected screen until the film shifted from the city to the desert and a calmer, singular scene.



The scenery is absolutely stunning, shot lovingly, the various shades of red and earth adding warmth to the screen. Into this peace comes the disturbance of Aron Ralston, who I am sure would have mowed down any road runners or coyotes that crossed his path in his solitary pursuit of sensation and thrill. His brief interactions with others paint him as a fairly decent bloke, but as one of those he encounters comments, he barely seems to register those around him and is fairly self sufficient.

Of course, this self reliance comes at a cost when Things Go Wrong. An accident leaves his arm pinned under a boulder, with noone aware of where he is and noone within shouting distance who can assist, leading to 127 Hours of Aron fighting for his survival.

James Franco plays Aron, and he is as good as ever, convincingly charming. During the 127 Hours of solitude, he convincingly portrays the panic, frustration, sadness and despair that one imagines a person in so desperate a situation would undergo. I was not convinced that his performance outshone that of Colin Firth in The King's Speech myself, in I thought the situation built the character more than the person playing him (if that makes sense), but it was gripping nonetheless.

I was a bit less certain of the "dream sequences" that the delirious Aron experienced as time wore on, though perhaps this is more a reflection that came in hindsight when a fairly inane "afterword" was made about one of these "premonitions" (I am sorry, dreaming of surviving and experiencing domestic bliss might have been quite unbelievable at the time considering his circumstances, but it is not a premonition). There is very little narrative to explain exactly what Aron is seeing, which can occasionally lead to a bit of confusion (perhaps in the "premonition" thing), but they are all beautifully shot.

Also well shot, but a lot more gruelling, is how Aron finally escapes his predicament. The score carries across the same intensity as what is happening on screen - I know, as my eyes were buried in the NotKate's shoulder but I still had an appreciation for everything that was going up on screen. Following that with a satisfying ending would always be tough, and the return to the frenetic flashes of "city life" style from the opening scenes seems almost like a way around having to really make the post accident story interesting, leaving the actual "what happened next" to the aforementioned afterwords.

Verdict: 127 Hours is an amazing cinematic experience about an twit who goes out by himself, gets into trouble, gets out of it through extreme measures, then goes on to become a celebrity off of his initial idiocy. Aron's is an extraordinary story of determination, but I felt that the film was much more successful in conveying the reality of what happened than portraying any greater impact on Aron's relationships or sense of himself. But I suppose there is enough real trauma at the moment. 7 Swiss Army knives out of 10.