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<\/a><\/p>\nOnce 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\u2014you 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\u2014his 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\u2014all 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\u2019s 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\u2019s one of the strongest dream sequences\/hallucinations of the movie.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s talk about those sequences a little more, though. One movie that\u2019s really interesting to compare \u201c127 Hours\u201d to is \u201cAll is Lost,\u201d a movie I adore, in which there\u2019s no dialogue aside from a few muttered swears from Robert Redford\u2019s character. From what I remember, the movie doesn\u2019t feature any flashbacks or hallucinations. There are no gimmicks to deepen our knowledge of the character, like adding a superfluous tragic backstory (I\u2019m looking at you, \u201cGravity\u201d) or soliloquizing (again, looking at you, \u201cGravity\u201d). \u201cAll is Lost\u201d 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\u2019s character (listed only as \u201cOur Man\u201d in the credits) try to survive, with an understated direction free of embellishment, is enough.<\/p>\n
\u201c127 Hours\u201d takes a much different approach. Boyle does<\/em> 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\u2019m of two minds when it comes to this; on the one hand, some of these stylistic tricks are undeniably cool<\/em>, like the shot from the inside of Aron\u2019s water bottle as he drains it. Still, even though I know Boyle is a super experienced director, there\u2019s something vaguely amateurish about seeing a director completely overload a film with style, like the random 180 degree shot and showy long takes in \u201cMe and Earl and the Dying Girl.\u201d Again, I\u2019m 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\u2019m a beginning film student, enamored with cool stuff like that, even when it doesn\u2019t serve a purpose.<\/p>\n Anyways, for the purposes of the discussion, let\u2019s ignore the \u2018arbitrary\u2019 stylistic choices and focus on the ones that are supposed to serve an explicit purpose. While JC Chandor decided to take one route with \u201cAll is Lost\u201d\u2014a bare-bones, understated narrative\u2014Danny 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\u2019s past.<\/p>\n For the most part, this really works well for Boyle\u2019s intentions. Aron\u2019s 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\u2019s on a gameshow, speaking as several different characters to the camera. Boyle actually uses a laugh track in this scene to show us Aron\u2019s imagining of the show, a neat trick. Also, the way the camera jumps around a lot, exploring practically every angle of Aron\u2019s 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\u2019s desperation beautifully. I love the montage of people drinking, stylishly depicting Aron\u2019s thirst.<\/p>\n Still, a part of me can\u2019t help but wish I could see a version of this movie in Chandor\u2019s 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\u2019s headspace; he\u2019s practically delirious at this point, and this all feels nightmarish and horrifying. That said, couldn\u2019t 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\u2019t the expression on James Franco\u2019s face enough (and I\u2019ll say that Franco was pretty amazing in this; I would\u2019ve given him the Oscar over Colin Firth)? And couldn\u2019t 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?<\/p>\n 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\u2019s home, goes on too long, is too obviously a hallucination, and would feel like a bait-and-switch if it wasn\u2019t<\/em> so obvious. There\u2019s a slight lag in the movie between the first time Aron tries to cut into his arm\u2014only resulting in a couple vaguely red lines and no real cuts\u2014and the time when he actually commits to it. Entering the dreamscape is certainly effective at showing Aron\u2019s state of mind, but there\u2019s only so much surreal imagery you can take before you become a little impatient.<\/p>\n This all sounds pretty negative, but let me say that most of this didn\u2019t 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 \u201cAll is Lost.\u201d Ultimately, these tricks mostly accomplished what they set out to do. While Chandor\u2019s understated direction is ideal to depict the simple tale of an anonymous man\u2019s isolation at sea, Boyle\u2019s dynamic direction is smart to place us directly in Aron\u2019s head and show us what he\u2019s thinking and feeling.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n