127 Hours (2010)

A man, a place, a problem, everything in a (almost) fixed state for 127 hours. How do you make a normal length movie out of this? This is the question I asked myself when I heard about this title. And certainly not because the 127 hours would be too much for 90 minutes but on the contrary, insignificant in this context.

So, what's the context? The film is based on a real case happened in 2003 when an American climber was trapped for the mentioned time length somewhere in a canyon having his right arm caught under a boulder. What happened after 127 hours ? I'll just let the movie show it to you (or Wikipedia / IMDb / etc for the most curious ones) because I already said pretty much everything about the subject/action in the phrase before, and from here onwards I'll just go straight to the movie making part. Well, once again, how do you make a movie about that? Yes, you have a catchy story (if you can call it a story ...) with apologies about this appreciation, since after all it's quite a tragic one. But still ... how do you manage not to bore the viewer since you basically have an actor who is caught with a hand under a rock in what should be the only main scene/action throughout the whole movie. Well ... you have the intro until that situation is reached, and a conclusion. Let's say you pull 30 minutes max out of those (I honestly don't know if it's that long in the movie ...). And further? How different attempts to "escape" can be tried given the context even in 127 hours, which is quite long ? As a light spoiler, obviously not too many. So ? ...

Well then, that's what I think it's the main point to appreciate in "127 Hours". If you watch it, you won't even feel the "problem" presented above. None of it. How is it solved? Obviously - you won't have non-stop on the screen the same scene with different frames of that guy trapped under the rock. I shouldn't say more not to spoil anything. Anyway the idea is based on the directing / editing and scriptwriting, all of these somehow managing to pull the movie out a little from the static scenery, yet without changing the ... action. I have no idea how much is the script actually connected with reality, which could just be as simplistic as can be = do not know ... maybe the guy just had a deep dreamless sleep for 95% of the 127 hours, or .. it could be just like in the movie. Because it's credible (and obviously it should be, we have restrictions of reality here). And besides that it is watchable. From my point of view, responsible for this is mainly Danny Boyle - directing + script. I didn't think, I don't remember how many years ago, when I saw "The Beach", that it will come a day when I will appreciate this guy as a director (I actually don't even think I have given a thought about who directed that thing). But following, were the "28 Days Later", "Sunshine" and "Slumdog Millionaire". Speaking of the last, here we have almost the same team - excellent cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle/Enrique Chediak (again, think at the static setting and about how many types of scene framing you'll need, especially given that the static setting is a kind of a pit between two rocks). And there's also the sound - probably A.R. Rahman would have been stuck at Bollywood lalalala "genre" if there wasn't for Slumdog Millionaire, but fortunately he didn't. Just see (actually hear) the most harsh scene in the movie, and how much does the sound increase the tension (well, also the mixing engineer would have a merit here). I'll end with the actor who basically played all the film alone - James Franco - just shortly saying that an Oscar nomination is 99.99% guaranteed.

So ... after all a movie can be done on this topic. And actually a good one.

Rating: 5 out of 5