spoofmaster (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spoofmaster) wrote2010-11-03 12:05 am
spoofmaster) wrote2010-11-03 12:05 am
127 Hours
I keep forgetting to write up my thoughts about this, but I'd like to say a little something about what I saw at the Austin Film Festival last week and the week before. I bought a basic pass for $42, and feel very much that I got my money's worth after the seven or eight programs I attended. I saw two very lovely documentaries (Make Believe and Waste Land), a mediocre Irish comedy (Zonad), more short films than you can shake a stick at (some good, some bad, some animated, some live action), and one movie already slated for wide release (127 Hours, based on the real life story of Aron Ralston). This week, in fact; it opens on Friday here in America.
Surprisingly, it's the last film that has stuck in my mind the most. I try to be a cynic about "based on a true story" movies since you have to take it all with a grain of salt and as soon as you spot the differences between the film and the real story it quickly starts seeming cheap (Newsies is adorable, but was there any actual reason for Kid Blink being turned into a secondary character?), and I try to be a cynic about movies that make me cry, precisely because I recognize that I cry at movies very, very easily, but I have to say that 127 Hours is truly excellent. It turns out James Franco is very much capable of carrying a movie that consists mostly of him standing in a dark hole and talking to himself, and that Danny Boyle is very much capable of turning "man falls down a hole, gets his hand trapped under a rock for five days" into something in which it is very easy to get (and remain!) emotionally invested.
The film has a number of disquieting moments, including Ralston's many hallucinations, and of course this comes to a head in the climax of the film, when, in a final act of desperation, he cuts his own arm off to escape. It's shown in full, gory detail (I couldn't stop covering my eyes, and I'm told two viewers in Toronto had to be carried out of the theater), but for once, I really don't object to the inclusion of gore in the movie. For me, it comes down to the fact that we're meant to be emotionally invested and to realize just what it means for him to be forced to these lengths. It prevents any tendency toward complacency about how you might handle the situation in his place when you have to sit and watch the actual mechanical process of a man cutting his own arm off with a woefully inadequate blade. Suddenly the question is no longer "Would I cut my own arm off?", but "Could I cut my own arm off?" I think a big difference for me in how I've reacted to this scene versus the way I tend to view violence in other films is that the act being depicted is not malicious (it is, in fact, a man battling to save his own life), and the film doesn't revel in it like movies along the lines of Death Proof and Kick-Ass. The horror of the situation is depicted as just that: horrible.
I don't want to give the impression that this one sequence dominates the whole movie. It's a very introspective film, peppered with flashbacks and hallucination/dream sequences in between Aron's internal and external monologues (he has a camcorder, which he uses to record final messages to his family). It's also, as I mentioned above, surprisingly funny--Aron is a very charismatic, playful character, and at points he uses humor to keep himself alive and fighting.
Just...here. Watch the trailer. It's making me want to go see it again, regardless of what an intense, exhausting experience it was the first time.
I was also going to rant about the movie rating system, but I got all distracted and wound up by this trailer, and I need to try to get back to my homework. Another time, maybe.
ETA: Found this, and it sounds like the real Aron Ralston is quite happy with the movie, and that Boyle's intentions in doing things the way he did in the film were a.) true to Ralston's book about it and b.) exactly what I thought they were. Those last attempts at cynicism on my part are just melting away.
Surprisingly, it's the last film that has stuck in my mind the most. I try to be a cynic about "based on a true story" movies since you have to take it all with a grain of salt and as soon as you spot the differences between the film and the real story it quickly starts seeming cheap (Newsies is adorable, but was there any actual reason for Kid Blink being turned into a secondary character?), and I try to be a cynic about movies that make me cry, precisely because I recognize that I cry at movies very, very easily, but I have to say that 127 Hours is truly excellent. It turns out James Franco is very much capable of carrying a movie that consists mostly of him standing in a dark hole and talking to himself, and that Danny Boyle is very much capable of turning "man falls down a hole, gets his hand trapped under a rock for five days" into something in which it is very easy to get (and remain!) emotionally invested.
The film has a number of disquieting moments, including Ralston's many hallucinations, and of course this comes to a head in the climax of the film, when, in a final act of desperation, he cuts his own arm off to escape. It's shown in full, gory detail (I couldn't stop covering my eyes, and I'm told two viewers in Toronto had to be carried out of the theater), but for once, I really don't object to the inclusion of gore in the movie. For me, it comes down to the fact that we're meant to be emotionally invested and to realize just what it means for him to be forced to these lengths. It prevents any tendency toward complacency about how you might handle the situation in his place when you have to sit and watch the actual mechanical process of a man cutting his own arm off with a woefully inadequate blade. Suddenly the question is no longer "Would I cut my own arm off?", but "Could I cut my own arm off?" I think a big difference for me in how I've reacted to this scene versus the way I tend to view violence in other films is that the act being depicted is not malicious (it is, in fact, a man battling to save his own life), and the film doesn't revel in it like movies along the lines of Death Proof and Kick-Ass. The horror of the situation is depicted as just that: horrible.
I don't want to give the impression that this one sequence dominates the whole movie. It's a very introspective film, peppered with flashbacks and hallucination/dream sequences in between Aron's internal and external monologues (he has a camcorder, which he uses to record final messages to his family). It's also, as I mentioned above, surprisingly funny--Aron is a very charismatic, playful character, and at points he uses humor to keep himself alive and fighting.
Just...here. Watch the trailer. It's making me want to go see it again, regardless of what an intense, exhausting experience it was the first time.
I was also going to rant about the movie rating system, but I got all distracted and wound up by this trailer, and I need to try to get back to my homework. Another time, maybe.
ETA: Found this, and it sounds like the real Aron Ralston is quite happy with the movie, and that Boyle's intentions in doing things the way he did in the film were a.) true to Ralston's book about it and b.) exactly what I thought they were. Those last attempts at cynicism on my part are just melting away.
no subject
I've found that I have a much stronger reaction to violence in Guillermo del Toro's films than I do in other, more violent films. I think it's because while del Toro's works often have some strong fantastical elements, there is never anything fantastical about the violence. It's always so believable that it makes me squirm and cover my eyes, whereas I can watch a movie like Kick-Ass without finding the gore half as disquieting, because it's so obviously fake.
no subject
I do agree that Guillermo del Toro's films, when they are violent, are very intense in their violence for the reason you've given here (aargh the fingers slammed in the door D:). I'm still bothered by fantasy violence, though, no matter how over the top it is.