I’m a big fan of films that deal with solitude and claustrophobia. A great example of its effectiveness was last years Buried. It’s hard to think of any film in recent memory that was as tense as that. In some respects, 127 Hours is a great companion piece. It tackles a similar premise but approaches it from a completely different angle. The main contrast of course is that 127 Hours is a true story, which everyone knows by now. Aron Ralston is out in some desert, gets his arm caught between a rock and a wall for five days and eventually has to perform a DIY amputation before he dies of thirst. The inner journey he embarks upon during this time though is what this film is about. And unlike Paul Conroy’s predicament in Buried, we encounter in glowing detail, everything Ralston sees, every premonition and hallucination. In fact a man’s decent into madness has never looked so beautiful. Of course it’s the epiphanies he has as a result that count, where he fully realises what, and most importantly who, he has taken for granted in life, and just whose fault it is that he is in the situation he is in. It’s not as gloomy as it sounds though; there is plenty of dark humour to cut through the tension, and James Franco’s performance is so well pitched that it never borders on the overly sentimental or melancholy. It’s the inevitable ending that truly disturbs, not for that faint hearted.
4/5
No comments:
Post a Comment