127 Hours Review

127 Hours is one of those ‘what would I do?’ movies. Just as Buried prompted me to ask what I would do if buried alive and 7 Days forced me to question what I would do if I found my daughters killer and A Serbian Film made me think of what I would do with the 10 pounds that I had just wasted on buying the bloody film on DVD; Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours made me think what the hell would I do if fell down a crack in a canyon in Utah and was left alone, trapped with my arm crushed under a sizable rock.

The film is the true story of Aron Ralston (played by James Franco), who wrote of his ordeal in the book, ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place’. Aron went off hiking, without telling anybody where he was going and fell down a deep, narrow crevice, got his arm trapped, stayed down there for more than 5 days before (and I’m sure everyone knows about this bit) he cuts his arm off.

Described by Boyle as “an action movie with a guy who can’t move”, 127 Hours contains far more thrills, action and emotion than you’d think could possibly be squeezed from Ralston’s lonesome situation.

Thanks to him bringing a camera along for the journey, we see Aron talking to his family through the lens and it gives him the change to externalise his inner thoughts and feelings, often in a humorous way.

From the visually frantic opening, Boyle sets up a film that is full of impressive montage moments that express elements of Ralston’s dire situation. Alongside Franco’s visibly cracked lips, we see a montage of adverts all demonstrating ‘thirst-quenchers’, recreating a feeling of thirst so intense that I even found my mouth drying up whilst watching.

We begin to truly get a sense of the world that Aron is left trapped in. A world visited by an eagle regularly. A world punctured by sunlight for a few hours a day. And in this world, Franco manages to portray a number of different sides to Ralston. We see his cocky, adventurous side plummet into a sort of a comic side that makes light of his struggle and finally a ruthlessly logical and matter of fact side that comes to terms with the fact that the arm needs to go.

And so we come to that arm. Most of the talk around the film surrounds the sequence where he cuts his arm off. It is grim and you do feel it but it’s not ‘faintworthy’ as has been claimed and it occupies only a few minutes of the film. It will prove to be a big loss if people don’t go to see the film due to squeamish concerns because the film, although obviously a key moment, is so much more than that.  

The film has an impressive score from A.R. Rahman, who previously worked with Boyle on Slumdog Millionaire, and one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard in a film for a while. Songs are included for a number of different purposes, some evoking emotion whilst others, like Bill Wither’s Lovely Day, raising a wry smile considering Ralston’s situation.

Boyle seems to be continuing a streak that now sees him the name behind favourites including Trainspotting, The Beach, 28 Days Later and Slumdog Millionaire; 127 Hours is up there with his best. Colourful, constantly entertaining and surprisingly affecting, 127 Hours is the most action packed film about a man on his own since, well…. Buried. [Insert arm related pun here]

The Secret In Their Eyes Review

Juan Jose Campanella’s twisty thriller sees retired criminal investigator Benjamin Esposito (Richard Darin) looking back at his time as a deputy clerk in 1970s Buenos Aires, as he pours the memories of an investigation he cannot forget into a novel.

2010 was a good year for foreign movies. We had Haneke’s The White Ribbon and Audiard’s A Prophet but both were beaten to the Academy Award by the then little known Argentinean film, The Secret in Their Eyes.

Back in the 70s, Benjamin was reluctantly assigned to investigate the brutal rape and murder of a young woman. He only truly embraces the case after meeting the woman’s grieving husband, Ricardo Morales (Pablo Rago), and seeing the love in Morales’ eyes for his lost love, Esposito and his often inebriated partner Pablo Sandoval (Guillemo Francella) throw themselves into trying to catch the killer.

The film deals with love as much as it does the crime, and Esposito’s impossible love for his boss, Irene (Soledad Villemil) provides other strand to films narrative, as he confronts her 25 years later to help him with the book. Both have clearly been affected by the repercussions of the case. She is done with the past, he cannot forget it.

“If you keep going over the past, you’re going to end up with no future” one of the characters tells Esposito; for him it seems the complete opposite. As long as the past case haunts him, he cannot think about his future.

The film, despite the dramatic themes and the heavy material of the case, has many comic moments, coming in the form of the banter between Benjamin and Pablo, a relationship that slowly and somewhat surprisingly becomes emotionally affecting.

The acting throughout is sublime, with Darin coming across as determined with the case but wounded in his interactions with Villemil and all the supporting roles are played to perfection. The interactions set 25 years latter are aided by make up that age them realistically and Darin performs Benjamin at the latter stages of his life with all the depth of a man that has dwelled on the memories of the past for too long.

The Secret in Their Eyes also contains, for me, the sequence of 2010. A long take that sees the camera twisting and turning over a football pitch, then through the crowd and finally around the mazy corridors of the stadium seems impossible but absolutely real, with no hint of CGI or camera trickery.

Campanella flits back and forth between time zones effortlessly and the twisty nature of the thriller, the humane treatment of the love angle as well as its unexpected ending makes The Secret in Their Eyes, one of the most perfectly paced and absorbing thrillers to come around in a long, long time.

My Top 5 Films of 2010

Catfish: A documentary that began life as a project by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman to chart the budding, online relationship between Ariel's brother Nev, and the family of a young, talented painter named Abbey, slowly turns into something different altogether. A must-see for Facebook addicts and stalkers alike, Catfish is a film that the less you know about before watching, the more fascinating it becomes.

Another Year: Mike Leigh's latest shows us a year in the life of happily married couple, Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen). Their positive outlook on life is counter-balanced by their friends, each of whom suffer some degree of unhappiness, ranging from drinking problems to struggling to cope with entering the latter stages of their life. The film is desperately sad at points but is played so believably that it becomes one of the most interesting, engaging films of the year.

Buried: Spending 90 minutes in a coffin with Ryan Reynolds may be a slightly twisted fantasy for some women, but Buried  is a tough, claustrophobic watch. Unfolding largely in real time, director Rodrigo Cortés, manages to create more ways of filming a man in coffin than would be thought possible but in doing so he has created an utterly enthralling watch that brings everyones nightmares about being buried alive to life.

Shutter Island: As good as Inception was, Di Caprio’s best role came in Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island, a film that sees Leo's US Marshall, Teddy Daniels, travel to the ominous Shutter Island hospital to investigate a missing patient. It's a film that Scorcese pumps full of haunting sound, eerie visuals and dark atmospherics whilst still managing to retain impressive shocks, twists, and an amazing ending.

A Single Man: In what had to be the most amazing looking film of the year, Tom Ford's first film follows George Falconer (Colin Firth), on what he plans to be the last day of his life, after struggling to overcome the depression that has plagued him since his partner's death. A Single Man sees Firth at the top of his game and Ford manages to walk the line between style and substance perfectly.

Black Swan Review

Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan is a passionately deranged pirouette into the slowly fracturing mind of a ballet dancer and a title that already looks to be one of the top films of 2011; a real dream of a nightmare.

The film focuses on Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), a perfectionist ballet dancer who, after getting the part of the Swan Queen in Swan Lake based on her virginal White Swan qualities, has to channel her dark side in a bid to become the Black Swan, a more spontaneous, lustful, creature entirely.

Nina herself is surrounded by numerous forces, each pulling and pushing her into varying mental states. These include her determined and slightly deranged mother (Barbara Hershey), a passionate teacher who’s methods are just a little unorthodox (Vincent Cassel), and Lilly, a new dancer to the company (Mila Kunis), who encapsulates everything Nina is not, sexual, uninhibited; a perfect Black Swan right down to the tattooed wings on her back.

Whether these individuals are the catalyst for Nina’s descent into madness or merely the push over the edge that such a focused, lifelong passion has lent itself towards, the films treatment of Nina’s dissolving mental state is a joy to watch.

The film is brimming with doubles, opposites, mirrors and doppelgangers, leaving different versions of Nina to be found all around the screen, and, each indicating Nina’s ever loosing grip on herself and reality. The film boasts a number of wonderful shocks, scares and general creepiness, and Aronofsky squeezes every ounce of physical panic and dread from every shot.

Often transforming normality into the stuff of nightmares, whether it be the picking at a bit of skin transformed into a moment of pure squirm-inducing horror or a old man on a train becoming a nightmarish deviant, Aronofsky heightens the mood at every chance, racking up the tension as he does so.

Clint Mansell’s score provides a gripping atmosphere of unease that leaves both Nina and the audience unable to escape, however, that said, the film is never a struggle and the sheer audacity of the film as well as some brief comic moments left a smile on my face.

Alongside Nina losing herself in her role, the film also explores ideas of rivalry between dancers as well as showing us (as Aronofsky did in The Wrestler), a real sense of the physical ordeals that the dancers put themselves through in a bid to become the best. We see close up the blood, sweat and tears (but mainly blood and tears) that come with the tough routines, intense rivalry and fierce dedication of ballet life.

Portman’s performance as Nina is perfect: deranged, brave, haunting, fragile, powerful and absolutely mesmerising all at the same time. Her performance contains so many surprises that it would be a shame to list here; suffice to say she is a strong and deserved contender for best actress at both the BAFTAs and the Oscars after already winning a Golden Globe for her performance.

The film boasts so many visual surprises that it is hard to describe in detail what makes the film a masterpiece. Black Swan is a true experience and a film that needs to be seen on the big screen. As the final third of the film descends into utter madness, everything is racked up to eleven. The eeriness, the scares, the shocks, the dancing; it all comes together in a final act that, as the music swelled, left me wanting to actually stand up and applaud.

The film is the directors best yet and on this form, Aronofsky’s next project, The Wolverine*, looks set to be one very interesting Marvel movie; although I don’t expect any Hollywood producers will be giving the green light to a Wolverine masturbation scene, just yet.

(I suppose as my first blog post and first attempt at a real review I should attempt some criticisms. Unfortunately I have none. But in the interest of fairness, I know that some have found the camera work too shaky and it may be a little ambiguous for some.)

*Aronofsky has since left The Wolverine and reports suggest his next film will be a retelling of the story of Noah's Ark. A masturbation scene involving Noah seems just as unlikely.