Aron Ralston is a technically proficient climber; he knows the ins and outs of climbing gear and is able to sever his arm below the elbow with a blunt knife. But, it is not Ralston’s technical proficiency that is here discussed, but director Danny Boyle’s.
127 Hours is the story of Ralston who, in 2003, gets his arm stuck between a boulder and the rock wall (literally, a rock and a hard place) in Utah’s Blue John Canyon. Limited characters and limited locations seem to be an unusual match for the visual restless Boyle. Slumdog Millionaire (2008) being the prime example of his wandering eye. What Boyle achieves here, with the thinnest of narratives, is quite remarkable. Boyle’s camera wanders where others dare not go. From the handlebars of Ralston’s bike, to extreme tight close ups, into the bottom of a water bottle as Ralston takes his last drink and then painfully through the tissue and all the way to the bone of his forearm. The camera is rarely still and the film is the better for it, involving us in Ralston’s struggle more than we would think possible.
Additionally, Boyle recognises that amongst the deathly silences of the desert at night, sound will play a key part in telling this story. The rush of rain water heightens our own awareness of Ralston’s desperate thirst; his cries for help are piercing and the exaggerated sound of bone breaking and nerves snapping catapult us back into the action of cutting one’s arm off with a blunt knife.
Where 127 Hours falls down is in its character development, even though Boyle attempts to take us under Ralston’s skin and into his mind (the only place a director who likes to roam with nowhere to go, can go). Ralston’s dreams, his memories, his fears, his loves are all vividly realised and cleverly blended into reality. Yet, the emotional punch isn’t there; Ralston is never more than a guy who we know will cut his arm off. And maybe it’s because we do know he’ll cut his arm off and survive that makes it difficult to attach emotionally. Boyle hints at Ralston’s hubris when it comes to his ability with extreme sports and the desert, but doesn’t give us enough of this to give the character a much need other layer. Sight and Sound’s review nicely comments on the irony of Ralston trying to take on the desert “single-handed only to leave the desert single-handed.” A stronger indication of this arrogance would not harm this film.
127 Hours is a technically impressive film, but there is no doubt that this is Boyle’s film, not Ralston’s and the question then has to be asked, when someone has achieved something so remarkable, doesn’t he deserve his own film?
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