127 Hours — directed by Danny Boyle — Sports drama. A young deserteer/mountaineer finds himself trapped in a canyon. 94 minutes Color 2010.
* * * *
I found myself detached watching this. Let’s assume it’s not because of a piece of undigested cheese, for the film is filled with a thousand felicities. But I have three questions. The film turned out to be exactly what I expected it to be: the story of a man escaping, played by a good-looking actor of some talent. James Franco plays him as a Merry Andrew isolate. I question the choice, not of an isolate, but of a man who is essentially volatile. The volatility may be inherent with Franco, but I wonder if the actual man, Aron Ralston was so. For Franco the desert is a lark. But if Ralston were actually a fellow of serious humor and of steady temperament, what would have happened to him in that canyon? As it is, on the soul-level, nothing happens to him. All he learns is: Always tell someone where you are going. Then, there is a problem with narration, by which I mean editing. In such a story it seems necessary to put the audience, not in the shoes of the main character, but in their own shoes in that perilous place. But that’s not what we get. What we get is the editing machine in that perilous place. So the editing takes over our job for us, without our saying we need it to. There are five million cuts, none of them necessary for our entry into the tale. So we end up with a virtuoso camera and editing, of which we never cease to be aware, and which, in my case, keeps me aloof from the events and from the actor playing him. For the actor is left with no single scene that is his own. Every scene is the camera’s, the editor’s. Franco is always on camera, but we are never allowed just to be with him. This is sad, because the story is remarkable, and because the list of things done well in this film would have no end: the desert shown, the meeting with the two girls hiking and their adventure, the kissing of the staple, the trailing of the rope, the handling of the rock-fall, the great last ten minutes of the picture. Another problem with the picture, just at present, is that too much is known about it beforehand; its publicity has killed it. But it is well worth seeing; it is not depressing; it is harrowing only when it needs to be and less harrowing than a thousand horror films. Expect the expected, and you won’t be disappointed.
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