127 Hours (2010)

It’s only been two years since Slumdog Millionaire dazzled the Academy Awards and danced off with eight Oscars, but director Danny Boyle and his talented team of collaborators could very well do it again with 127 Hours, the true story of a journey deep into a dark and desolate crack in the Earth, and deep into the heart of a desperate man who found life–his own–in that lonely place.

This stunning film stars James Franco as Aron Ralston, a fun-loving and somewhat reckless young outdoorsman who went to Canyonlands National Park in southeastern Utah for a weekend bike-and-hike in May 2003. He parked his car, took off full-tilt across the beautiful, barren landscape on his bicycle, and eventually encountered two cute and lost hikers (Amber Tamblyn, Kate Mara). After pointing them in the right direction and sharing a little time at a hidden pool, he set off alone towards his destiny.

After one bad step, a large boulder fell and Aron fell with it. The boulder crushed his right forearm, pinning it firmly against the wall of a narrow crevasse. As an experienced rescue guide, he was resourceful enough to have some survival gear in his backpack, and he was fortunate to be facing the boulder that held him, which he could use as a sort of table to spread out his possessions (including a video camera he used to record his predicament and his thoughts). Unfortunately, his recklessness caused several major impediments to his situation: the kind of rope he had was ineffective, his water supply was dwindling, and he neglected to tell anyone where he was going. And perhaps most painfully, the only knife blade he brought along, part of a cheap multi-tool, was dull.

If you aren’t already aware of what Aron did to survive, it’s not difficult to guess. And when that inevitable scene comes, it is depicted in distressingly graphic detail. It is very, VERY difficult to watch, not at all for the faint of heart. But this isn’t a fictional movie that depicts self-mutilation with ghoulish bloodlust like Saw or sado-masochistic shock like Antichrist. What Aron did was horrific but also understandable. I compare the scene to Tom Hanks’ painful self-dentistry with an ice skate in Cast Away, but with the graphic visuals of the open-heart surgery in All That Jazz. And even that comparison fails to truly capture the profound agony up on the screen.

But don’t think that 127 Hours is all about sitting through a whole movie to gawk at a grisly climax. Briskly compressing the titular span of time into just over an hour and a half, director Boyle and his co-writer, Slumdog scribe Simon Beaufoy, bring us within the mind of Aron as he assesses his predicament, reviews his mistakes both on this trip and in his life, and copes with the additional hazards of his situation, including a terrifying flash flood that he cannot swim away from. He also has time to ponder the philosophical angle, reasoning that the boulder was positioned there for millions of years awaiting its destiny to crush his arm, but later he recognizes his complicity in the situation. “I chose this,” he tells himself. And it becomes his choice to survive, by any means he can achieve.

Boyle uses so much hyperkinetic photography and editing that the film often feels like a Slumdog Millionaire sequel. It nearly goes over the top at times with this frenetic style, but in retrospect it feels appropriate and justified. The visual frenzy mirrors Aron’s adventurous streak and energetic personality, and it opens wide the visual potential of what is, for the most part, a one-man, one-location show. The imagery becomes more surreal as time passes and Aron’s thoughts become more erratic. Add to this another propulsive score by Slumdog’s Oscar-winner A.R. Rahman–and a couple of oldies that cracked me up by their inclusion–and the film becomes a fascinating bookend that applies the colorful style of those crowded Mumbai streets to the story of a single person trying to stay alive in a vast and unpopulated wilderness.

James Franco is completely superb, his finest performance yet. He carries this movie with one hand literally tied down, drawing the audience into his most intimate thoughts and emotions, from a giddy self-interview for his video camera to despair over his dwindling water supply, from his regrets at missed opportunities to his paroxysms of physical pain at what he must do. It’s an emotionally resonant performance that touched me deeply. Franco is perfect in the role and deserves every accolade he collects for it.

I went to southeastern Utah on vacation this past summer, not to Canyonlands but to nearby Arches National Park. It is formidable territory out there, with glorious and amazing sights but also a myriad of dangers. Claustrophobes and cremnophobes (fear of precipices and high ledges–yep, I’m both) may find the lands out there even more fearful, especially because safety fences and guardrails are rather few and far between. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t take the time to view and experience what I can of our country and planet’s sublime natural grandeur. The same goes for 127 Hours–you may already know what happens, but that doesn’t mean you should pass on the opportunity to see this astonishing, surprisingly emotional film of survival and the indomitable human spirit.