review: 127 hours

Danny Boyle’s 2008 Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire was a frenetic, culture capturing tale of a boy’s life that spanned years and swept through the changing landscape of an impoverished India. So when his most successful and bankable film is such an epic story of love and loss, it begs the question as to why his next film would be about one man trapped in between two rocks for five days? Known for his energy inducing, adrenalin pumping films he infuses electricity into characters and landscapes, and just like lightning, he never strikes in the same place twice. From the drug filled streets of Edinburgh to the paradise-turned-communal-nightmare of a Thai island, Boyle’s films reject any sense of categorisation, spanning genre and geography. That's not to say that there aren’t themes evoked throughout some of Boyle’s films; both The Beach and Sunshine capture people being engulfed by the extremities of nature that question our sense of belonging within it. His latest effort, 127 Hours, takes the same subject matter and simultaneously manages to both magnify and shrink it into the personal story of a man trying to take on nature by himself, and neither quite winning or losing.

From the opening shots of 127 Hours, we are at odds with civilization; through an energy filled sequence we watch Aron Ralston (James Franco) escaping life and the dark confines of a busy city in a high voltage, split-screened scene that never lets the audience orientate themselves until reaching the vast and intense landscape of Moab, Utah. Captured beautifully, with the help of cinematographers Enrique Chediak and Anthony Dod Mantle, Boyle infuses the landscape with a sense of paradise and danger that delves into the heart of an America we are only exposed to through the safety of the discovery channel. The pace doesn’t let-up until the pivotal moment when reality comes crashing down in the form of a boulder inside a deep canyon. Ralston’s world suddenly gets a lot smaller.

What follows is a character study as we bore into the soul of a man who should have been careful what he wished for. Franco gives a performance that offers honesty, passion and the right amount of humour which refuses to engulf the audience in the despair of the mortal situation. As we become intertwined in Ralston’s fear and fantasies Boyle manages to find beauty and affirmation of life in an unforgiving environment that reaches beyond what could have been an all too easy moral story of men-knowing-their-place-in-nature. Whilst the climactic scene is visceral and merciless the visuals are never in excess or superfluous to the requirements of the story. 127 Hours is not about a man amputating his own arm with an ill designed pocket knife, but the story of a man making an exchange with life that borders on a spiritual experience.

Ultimately Boyle takes the small story of one man and magnifies it with all the vivid intensity of Slumdog and The Beach combined. In an inspiring and, at times, uplifting ninety minutes of cinema, 127 Hours refuses to take the easy route and indulge in the grim reality of Ralston’s situation. As Boyle breaks boundaries between fantasy and reality he proves once again that he knows how to turn a character inside-out, cementing him as a forerunner for one of cinema’s great directors.