David Allsopp127 Hours (2011)
February 24th 2011 22:25
Directed by Danny Boyle.
127 Hours is the true story of Aron Ralston (James Franco), a seasoned mountain climber, who is spending his weekend exploring the Blue John Canyon in Canyonlands National Park in Utah. When descending a narrow passage of the canyon Ralston dislodges a large rock, and in the fall has his right arm pinned to the canyon wall. He’s trapped, with no help nearby, and he hasn’t told anyone where he was going. In the five days that follow Ralston must come to terms with the choices that have brought him to this moment, and find the strength within to escape.
Danny Boyle is a filmmaker who always seems to be making interesting choices. Films like Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Slumdog Millionaire don’t seem to have a common thread linking them to a single filmmaker – but perhaps that’s the point. After winning the Academy Award for Slumdog Millionaire it seems like Boyle could have had his pick of any project available, but instead of choosing a “safe” option to re-create his success he chose a film that for most of it’s running time involves one solitary man and one unyielding rock. It’s choices like this that make Boyle one of the most interesting directors working today – you may never know what he’s going to do next, but you know it won’t be dull.
Boyle’s direction and the cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak are masterful. The natural beauty and wide vistas of the Utah landscape perfectly counter-balance the claustrophobic reality and visceral intensity of Ralston’s predicament. Sound and image are edited in such a way that while the subject matter can be gruesome, it is not what you see but what you feel that will stay with you. The audience can feel both the pain and the relief that Ralston goes through.
But even with all these other factors working perfectly, a film like this – due to its very nature – stands or falls on the performance of the lead actor. James Franco steps up to the plate and doesn’t just hit a home run, but circles the bases, picks the bat up again and hits another. To say it is a great performance would not do Franco justice, as it never feels like a performance - like acting. Franco, like the whole film, never feels anything less than real.
That’s the true achievement of this film - putting the audience in that canyon with Ralston, feeling every step of his journey.
Four and a half survival bananas out of five.
127 Hours is the true story of Aron Ralston (James Franco), a seasoned mountain climber, who is spending his weekend exploring the Blue John Canyon in Canyonlands National Park in Utah. When descending a narrow passage of the canyon Ralston dislodges a large rock, and in the fall has his right arm pinned to the canyon wall. He’s trapped, with no help nearby, and he hasn’t told anyone where he was going. In the five days that follow Ralston must come to terms with the choices that have brought him to this moment, and find the strength within to escape.
Danny Boyle is a filmmaker who always seems to be making interesting choices. Films like Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Slumdog Millionaire don’t seem to have a common thread linking them to a single filmmaker – but perhaps that’s the point. After winning the Academy Award for Slumdog Millionaire it seems like Boyle could have had his pick of any project available, but instead of choosing a “safe” option to re-create his success he chose a film that for most of it’s running time involves one solitary man and one unyielding rock. It’s choices like this that make Boyle one of the most interesting directors working today – you may never know what he’s going to do next, but you know it won’t be dull.
Boyle’s direction and the cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak are masterful. The natural beauty and wide vistas of the Utah landscape perfectly counter-balance the claustrophobic reality and visceral intensity of Ralston’s predicament. Sound and image are edited in such a way that while the subject matter can be gruesome, it is not what you see but what you feel that will stay with you. The audience can feel both the pain and the relief that Ralston goes through.
But even with all these other factors working perfectly, a film like this – due to its very nature – stands or falls on the performance of the lead actor. James Franco steps up to the plate and doesn’t just hit a home run, but circles the bases, picks the bat up again and hits another. To say it is a great performance would not do Franco justice, as it never feels like a performance - like acting. Franco, like the whole film, never feels anything less than real.
That’s the true achievement of this film - putting the audience in that canyon with Ralston, feeling every step of his journey.
Four and a half survival bananas out of five.
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Comment by Andy Tope
Bagman's Gazette
I watched this one only a couple of weeks ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. One of the only movies that I have stayed awake thinking about for hours afterwards for quite some time.
I agree all involved in the film did a ripping job. Makes me want to read Ralston's autobiography and get out and see the world more!