Absolutely wonderful, gripping, perfectly acted and directed — 127 Hours is one of those films which will shake you up for a few days and probably wake you up at night.
The story begins in 2003 with Aron Ralston, a 27 year old mechanical engineer whose true passion is hiking. We watch him getting ready for a day of solo canyoneering in the mountains of Utah. Aron is a charming and friendly young man, but within the first 10 minutes of the film, we are quickly made to understand that he is a little self absorbed (he does not bother to answer a phone call from his mother) and is even careless (he leaves his apartment underprepared for his hiking trip, leaving his Swiss army knife in his cupboard because he is in such a rush to get started, he has no mobile phone, is low on water and food).Read more
And of course nobody knows of Aron’s plans when he sets off on his life altering journey.
He bumps into two young college girls who are also hiking and seem completely lost. Aron helps them find their way and the threesome flirt innocently in an underground pool. Megan and Kristi invite him to party, but as he continues his journey into the canyon waving goodbye, the girls both realise that they will probably never see this charming loner again.
Suddenly the film changes its pace. A boulder gets loose and falls after Ralston at the bottom of the canyon pinning his arm against the canyon wall and trapping him. After the initial panic and yelling, Aron comes to terms with the fact that he is alone and nobody has the faintest idea where he is.
Based on Ralston’s memoirs, Between A Rock And A Hard Place, director Danny Boyle has surpassed himself. Think about it, how can one possibly make a film about a man stuck at the bottom of a canyon without boring its viewers? Boyle succeeds with genius. He uses special effects, splits the screen in two or three filling each section with ultra rapid images to the haunting sounds of A.R Rahman.
As Aron’s mental and physical status deteriorates and he becomes more and more delusional, he begins to hallucinate about an ex-girlfriend who ironically predicts for him a lonely life. Delirious with pain, exhaustion and dehydration he dream about his family and friends.
Aron goes through several different moments during the 127 hours he spends stuck in the canyon. After the initial panic and energetic attempts to move the boulder, Aron organises himself while always keeping in mind that his death is an imminent probability. He rations his water, carves the plausible time and date of his death on the rock and films his last moments on his video camera. James Franco will leave many speechless and why the Best Actor Oscar did not go to him remains a huge mystery.
In a way Aron knows that he has dug his own grave by failing to communicate with the people around him. 127 Hours is tough to watch, we may find ourselves retching when Aron who has run out of water is forced to drink his own urine. Some scenes like the cracking of the arm, and the cutting through flesh and a nerve with a practically blunt pocket knife may even make you pass out or hide your eyes behind anything you can! Boyle shot the amputation scene in one take which gives the entire sequence a level of realism which is hard to dispute! But the film is strangely addictive and though we are technically watching the slow death of a man, 127 Hours has the opposite effect on its viewers; it is an ode to life and self introspection.
The brilliance of the film lies mainly on two people, Danny Boyle’s talent as a director and James Franco’s genius as an actor. Days after watching 127 Hours, I cannot get out of my mind the image of Aron cutting off his arm and taking a picture of the chopped off limb stuck under the boulder. Unbelievable, incredible, 127 Hours is a film like no other and not to be missed.
Courtesy - The Sunday Leader - By Sumaya Samarasinghe
