127 Hours

How do you show one man’s inner thoughts, his inner feelings, his inner struggle? In the autobiography Between a Rock and a Hard Place Aron Ralston tells in great detail the story of how he went for a hike in Canyon Lands, Utah, got stuck in a canyon for five days when his arm got jammed between a rock and the wall of the canyon, and survived by cutting off his own arm with a dull knife. Ralston tells his story using first person narrative which allows every emotion and thought to be expressed and understood. For a writer it is not difficult to tell this story effectively but for a filmmaker this is colossal challenge. For over an hour the story is confined to one man, deep in a canyon by himself. According to the real Aron Ralston, the mental and physical journey he went through was life changing, even spiritual. In order to convey this to a film audience a director has to be incredibly creative and skilled, which is exactly what 127 Hours director, Danny Boyle, is.

The movie starts off with a bang. The music, which was composed by A.R. Rahman, who also composed the music for Slumdog Millionaire, has a fast paced, rhythmic energy to it, similar to the music from Slumdog. The music plays an important role throughout the entire film. In moments when Aron is losing track of reality the music creates an otherworldly soundtrack to Aron’s thoughts. And in the climactic scene where Aron amputates his own arm, the music creates a sense of adrenaline pumping intensity heightened in the moments as he plucks away at his nerves.

The opening credits set the tone for the rest of the movie. The screen is cut into three vertical bars containing images of crowds of people and images of James Franco’s Aron getting ready for his trip to Utah. It is these places, a stadium, an escalator, a city street, all overflowing with people that Aron is running away from. The real Aron was so inspired by the books, Into the Wild and Into Thin Air that he left his high paying job at Intel and moved to Colorado to work in a store which sold outdoors equipment. Like the characters in those two books Aron needed to separate from society, to be out in the wild, and to push himself to physical and mental extremes. This fabulous opening montage, with snazzy music and split screens, emphasizes that Aron is a man cut off from this world and in search for adventure outside of confines of the city.

Within the first twenty-five minutes of the movie Aron has fallen to his doom, trapped inside the canyon. The claustrophobic feel of the story is opened up by Boyle’s cinematic techniques. To show the isolation of Aron’s location Boyle pulls the camera out of the canyon, taking us farther and farther into the sky, until we see the thin slice of rock which Aron is confined between. From this visual technique it is apparent that Aron has no chance of being noticed by hikers or rescue searchers. When Aron takes his contacts out and puts them in his mouth to moisten them, images of Aron getting out of the shower and putting in his contacts at home immediately follows. These images lead into other images and sounds. We see Aron ignore a call from his mom, a missed chance to explain where he might be going. The next image is of Aron photocopying guidebook pages and telling his boss that he isn’t sure where he’s going; yet again another missed opportunity to tell of his destination. In these short few seconds we are aware that no one probably knows where Aron is, thus making the danger of the accident even more palpable.

As the days drag on and Aron runs out of food and water he begins to hallucinate and imagine things of his desire. The real Aron wrote in his book that he would dream about different kinds of drinks so Boyle recreates these imaginings by using music and fast paced shots of all different kinds of people drinking. Many of the hallucinations in the movie were really things that the real Ralston claimed to have had. Boyle uses these hallucinations to take us out of the tiny world the film is set in as well as to give us some information about who Ralston was before he got stuck in the canyon. Images of his sister playing the piano while his mother and father sit on a couch and images of an ex girlfriend and a bad breakup give us the background information necessary to understand this man a little more. The hallucinations are also horrifying. With each image we are taken away from the terrifying reality that he is stuck in the canyon; when we are brought back to the dark, cold and solitary confinement of the canyon our sense of doom and dread increase greatly.

Expecting that he would die the real Ralston began recording taped messages on a video camera back to his family. While only one of these has ever been shown to the public due to the sensitive nature of the messages, they allowed Boyle to have the character Aron express what he was feeling and show us the rollercoaster of emotions he was going through.

I have talked with a few people who don’t understand why it was necessary to show so graphically the scene in which Aron amputates his own arm. The whole experience is shot mostly in close-ups and extreme close-ups allowing the audience to be as intimately connected with this man as possible. We are going through every step and every emotion that Ralston went through in order to understand exactly what he felt during this impossible journey. Ralston has explained that while cutting off his arm was painful (in reality it took him 40 minutes), it was also extremely freeing. For five days he had been stuck between a rock and a wall. He was extremely close to death and almost without hope.  When he finally cut his arm free it was a cathartic and joyous moment. As an audience we already know the story. We already know that he cuts off his own arm and lives to tell about it. By showing the horrific experience, detail for detail, we forget what we know and relive the experience, every emotion, every horror and the triumph of what Aron does to survive.

Of course all of this wouldn’t have been a convincing story if it hadn’t been for Franco’s performance. For most of the film Franco is by himself. He has the difficult task of showing a man who went into the canyon, cocky and self assured and left the canyon grateful for life and everyone in it. Emotions of desperation and despair cross Franco’s face in moments when his attempts to free himself are unsuccessful. Wit and charm exude from Franco when he interviews himself on his camera as if on a game show in a scene which is both heartbreaking and clever. And in the end, Franco exhibits determination and bravery in the last hours when Aron’s body was dying but he was unwilling to give in. It is a subtle performance by Franco and in his subtly he conveys this whole range of emotions so perfectly that you believe in every step he takes, even when he begins to amputate his arm.   

After watching this movie I could not get it out of my mind. Images flooded back to me whenever I thought about it. I have never been one who loves survival tales but I love stories about human beings pushing themselves to extremes. Boyle and Franco were able to create a portrait of a man that is so stunning that I could not take my eyes away. While it may not be for everyone, I think 127 Hours is a fascinating and remarkable film.