Tuesday, February 15, 2011

127 Hours


Watching 127 hours gives you a sense of perspective about yourself. First however lets look at the main character.
The film starts out with you learning hardly anything about the main character, which I think was very purposeful. He walks around his house grabbing things, but it's dark, leaving you unable to see anything. He then gets leave from work, which we see through a blurry security camera. Finally we see him out in the desert, riding his bike, and having a good time out there. So far we know he is a free spirit, he wants to stretch his legs, and hit the trails. Not a whole lot to go on right? Then we finally get him meeting with some girls, having a good time. A little more perspective. Then, suddenly he gets trapped. It's really quite early. Here's where I was wondering what they were going to do, since at that point, we weren't invested enough in our character to really give a crap if he got hurt or died, or whatever.

Then this movie really gets going with him being unable to free himself; he seems to finally be trapped...literally and figuratively. The impression is given, that he is always able to figure out these situations himself. His independence is highlighted when one of the girls says, "I don't think we even figure into his day." Suddenly he is trapped, and cannot get out himself, cannot call for help, and didn't let anyone know where he was. We begin to see the physical issues he deals with, which at first, don't seem too terrible, although, he looks highly uncomfortable, I especially think the idea of being stuck behind a rock, while having to sleep in an awkward possition would suck. Eventually though, after enduring watching him drink his own urine, and try different options, he begins to have flashbacks, and hallucinate. This is where I really liked it, because, the character was developed midway through the movie, which I found really interesting. As we go along, we start to really care about this guy. Yeah, he's made mistakes, problems with girls, problems with family, at one point he sees a small boy (turns out it is his son, which he ends up having later...and this really did happen.) and the tension of the situation is now, he is going to die, and we actually want him to win, I mean he's learned...he deserves it.


The whole time, you can kind of sense, he is summoning up his courage( or maybe that's just us if we know what happens) for what is the climax. He has to make a sacrifice, he has to cut off his own arm. He has to lose a part of himself. Now I know that this really happened, but you have to respect Danny Boyle at taking this story, and without tainting the truth, painting a story we can respect, care about, and using analogies of the human psyche. I mean for crying out loud, we watched a guy not move for over an hour on the screen, and found out about him, and his life; and to finally bring it around full circle after watching this I dove into my own character a little bit, and wondered how I'd react. I think the best introspection, is not only when we are alone, but when we are forced to be with only ourselves. I think what we find, can often be terrifying, enlightening, and life changing.