Weekend Watch – “127 Hours”

When everyone talks about “127 Hours,” the conversation inevitably turns to the famously gruesome way Aron Ralston (James Franco) escapes from the rock that traps his arm: he amputates his own arm with a pocketknife. It’s understandable that that’s what dominates the conversation about the movie, but that’s ignoring so much else that’s great about the movie.

For viewers who already know how Aron escapes, like I did, there’s a degree to which much of the movie feels like it’s biding its time, putting off the inevitable moment when Aron will cut off his own arm. I knew it was coming, and there were a couple moments, especially in the beginning, where I was very aware of how the happy moments—Aron swimming and laughing and having fun with Kristi (Kate Mara) and Megan (Amber Tamblyn), listening to songs like “Never Hear Surf Music Again”—were obviously there to contrast with the sudden catastrophe that follows. At the time, those happy moments felt a little cheap.

Once I got a feeling for the rhythm of the movie, though, I got really into it. It has that intoxicating, engaging feeling that survival movies can have—you feel the hunger, the thirst, the desperation of the main character. Late in the movie, as Aron lapses into hallucination and remembers people from his past—his mother and father sitting on the couch, his sister playing piano, his coworker, his ex-girlfriend Rana lightly stroking his chest or lying in bed staring at him—all you want is for Aron to make it out alive and make it back to everyone he loves. You feel isolated with him. And I was struck by how well writer-director Danny Boyle wove the encounter with Kristi and Megan back into the narrative. At one point, Aron forgets about his family, forgets about Rana and his friends, and just replays the videos of him swimming with Kristi and Megan. He misses them. He misses these two women, who he barely knows, because they represent, even more immediately than his loved ones, the life he’s missing out on. Aron imagines himself at the party they invited him to, observing people lounging around with red solo cups and grabbing beers, and he wants nothing more than this picture of normalcy. It’s one of the strongest dream sequences/hallucinations of the movie.

Let’s talk about those sequences a little more, though. One movie that’s really interesting to compare “127 Hours” to is “All is Lost,” a movie I adore, in which there’s no dialogue aside from a few muttered swears from Robert Redford’s character. From what I remember, the movie doesn’t feature any flashbacks or hallucinations. There are no gimmicks to deepen our knowledge of the character, like adding a superfluous tragic backstory (I’m looking at you, “Gravity”) or soliloquizing (again, looking at you, “Gravity”). “All is Lost” taught me a lot about movies; it showed me that you can identify with a character just by watching them, without hearing a word they say, without knowing a thing about their past. It showed me that cheap visual tricks are unnecessary. Simply watching Redford’s character (listed only as “Our Man” in the credits) try to survive, with an understated direction free of embellishment, is enough.

“127 Hours” takes a much different approach. Boyle does fill the movie with directorial embellishments. In the first scene, the camera trucks through cabinets as Aron grabs supplies for his hike. Unnecessary Dutch angles populate the early goings of the story. I’m of two minds when it comes to this; on the one hand, some of these stylistic tricks are undeniably cool, like the shot from the inside of Aron’s water bottle as he drains it. Still, even though I know Boyle is a super experienced director, there’s something vaguely amateurish about seeing a director completely overload a film with style, like the random 180 degree shot and showy long takes in “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.” Again, I’m not sure where I stand on this, because the stylistic stuff is genuinely cool to see. I just worry that the only reason I like it is because I’m a beginning film student, enamored with cool stuff like that, even when it doesn’t serve a purpose.

Anyways, for the purposes of the discussion, let’s ignore the ‘arbitrary’ stylistic choices and focus on the ones that are supposed to serve an explicit purpose. While JC Chandor decided to take one route with “All is Lost”—a bare-bones, understated narrative—Danny Boyle goes in the opposite direction, including all the things Chandor left out: soliloquys to the camera, hallucinations revealing interior desires and fears, and glimpses of the protagonist’s past.

For the most part, this really works well for Boyle’s intentions. Aron’s dialogue really allows us to get to know a lot about him. We see him as a charismatic and flirty guy helping Kristi and Megan out at the beginning, and we later see his sense of humor become dark as he pretends he’s on a gameshow, speaking as several different characters to the camera. Boyle actually uses a laugh track in this scene to show us Aron’s imagining of the show, a neat trick. Also, the way the camera jumps around a lot, exploring practically every angle of Aron’s precarious position, keeps the whole thing feeling fresh. I never got bored of the setting itself. And, as I mentioned above, some of those hallucinations and dreams depict Aron’s desperation beautifully. I love the montage of people drinking, stylishly depicting Aron’s thirst.

Still, a part of me can’t help but wish I could see a version of this movie in Chandor’s style. When Aron breaks his radius and ulna bones, there are explosions of sound like thunder to depict how horribly painful it is. And when he finally cuts his arm off, it happens in a stylish montage of escalating splashes of blood and gore, with the camera jumping around to show it from every angle. All this stuff is really effective at putting us in Aron’s headspace; he’s practically delirious at this point, and this all feels nightmarish and horrifying. That said, couldn’t the breaking of bones have been just as effective if we heard them as they actually sound: maybe a slight snapping, like a twig? Isn’t the expression on James Franco’s face enough (and I’ll say that Franco was pretty amazing in this; I would’ve given him the Oscar over Colin Firth)? And couldn’t Aron cutting his own arm off have been even more disturbing if we just saw it exactly as it happened, with him stubbornly cutting until the blood began spurting and he slowly descended into a bloody mess?

The hallucinations, too, become a little much at points. I liked seeing Aron remembering Rana, but the hallucination of the thunderstorm, which frees Aron and allows him to escape and drive to Rana’s home, goes on too long, is too obviously a hallucination, and would feel like a bait-and-switch if it wasn’t so obvious. There’s a slight lag in the movie between the first time Aron tries to cut into his arm—only resulting in a couple vaguely red lines and no real cuts—and the time when he actually commits to it. Entering the dreamscape is certainly effective at showing Aron’s state of mind, but there’s only so much surreal imagery you can take before you become a little impatient.

This all sounds pretty negative, but let me say that most of this didn’t really bother me; it was a vague concern at worst, and it just got me thinking about the benefits and detriments of copious stylishness, especially in contrast to “All is Lost.” Ultimately, these tricks mostly accomplished what they set out to do. While Chandor’s understated direction is ideal to depict the simple tale of an anonymous man’s isolation at sea, Boyle’s dynamic direction is smart to place us directly in Aron’s head and show us what he’s thinking and feeling.

I think my favorite sequence, though, is the ending one. After a disturbing montage of arm-cutting, everything abruptly ends and suddenly Aron is standing at a distance from the rock, with his arm and body free. Franco’s expression here, his disbelief, is just perfect. Then he stumbles through the boulders and, eventually, steps into the sunlight, letting out a laugh of ecstasy. The sight of him slurping up water from a dirty pond is wonderful, and I didn’t even care that it looked super filthy. And then there’s the final scene, as Aron, on the verge of collapse, spots a family walking through a screen of yellow fog. He calls out to them, muted at first, then loud. They approach. He gulps down water. Another group comes. He gulps down more water. And then that helicopter lands, and he staggers to safety. It’s more simple, more cathartic, more beautiful than a hallucinatory montage could ever be.