127 Hours

(2010) *** R
94 min. Fox Searchlight Pictures. Director: Danny Boyle. Cast: James Franco, Amber Tamblyn, Kate Mara, Clemence Poesy, Kate Burton.

/content/films/3880/1.jpgNot since Sisyphus has a boulder-versus-man tale gotten so much attention. Danny Boyle's 127 Hours dramatizes the survivalist story of hiker Aron Ralston, as told in his book Between a Rock and a Hard Place. In the process, James Franco positions himself for a Best Actor Oscar nomination.

The title refers to the time lone mountain climber Ralston (Franco) spends trapped in Utah's Blue John Canyon, where a boulder pins his arm to a rock wall. Boyle relishes the filmmaking challenge: like Ralston, Boyle is an adrenaline junkie, and the film's opening moments establish the searching energy of filmmaker and subject. A vigorous split-screen title sequence (set to Free Blood's "Never Hear Surf Music Again") emphasizes the constant movement of humanity and Ralston's addiction to the stimulation he believes only a nature excursion can provide him. Both notions prove deeply ironic, as does the idea that life bustles on unabated while Ralston's lifeforce ebbs away in a quiet canyon.

The opening sequence teases what audiences know they'e in for, as Ralston fatefully fails to pick up his phone and tell his parents his planned whereabouts, notice an extra bottle of water in his fridge, or find the pocket knife hiding on his top shelf. Ralston also meets a couple of young female hikers (Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara) shortly before his accident. Even as Ralston faces his fate alone, his parents, the hikers, old friends and girlfriends remain characters in his story. Boyle's conceit is to view Ralston's experience from his subjective point-of-view, incorporating flashbacks to happier times, reveries, and fantasy visions, as well as his unreliable perception as delirium encroaches.

At the instant of the accident, Ralston quickly experiences most of Kubler-Ross' stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. That accomplished, he focuses on his options, laying out his gizmos on the boulder; these include a flashlight, a cheap multiuse tool, and his video camera, with which he reviews his meeting with the girls and records video diaries that give the man-in-nature adventure its distinctly 21st century tone of navel-gazing.

Boyle and co-screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (both Oscar winners for Boyle's previous film, Slumdog Millionaire) don't flinch from gore, and theyt indulge in plenty of gallows humor. The director winningly uses every audio-visual trick in his bag to turn the story cinematic. 127 Hours becomes something of a Rorschach test for audiences. Is it a uniquely powerful experience or a "Johnny-come-lately" after the metaphysical survivalist films Touching the Void and Into the Wild? Is it an amazing tale of endurance or a dubious extension of a reckless fool's fifteen minutes of fame? I'll take a little from column A and a little from column B.

Perhaps the least assailable element of the film is Franco's performance. In mental and spiritual conflict with an immovable object—one standing in for the force of nature and mortality—Franco's intuitive acting skill never fails him. Even when the camera is directly in his face, or in a bold sequence requiring him essentially to do a stand-up comedy routine, Franco pitches his performance to hit the right notes of desperately searching soulfulness. The humanism of Franco's performance focuses and redeems the overriding "carpe diem" theme, around which Boyle loses ground in a hoary, sentimental assertion at film's end.

[This review first appeared in Palo Alto Weekly.]

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Bluray

Aspect ratios: 1.85:1

Number of discs: 1

Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

Street date: 3/1/2011

Distributor: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

Shot on digital, 127 Hours offers a dazzling and wholly accurate hi-def image in its Blu-ray + Digital Copy special edition. True to form, Boyle delivers a film with in-your-face visuals and audio, and Blu-ray is up to the task of bringing every pixel and bit into home theaters: color is brilliant, contrast perfect, and detail and texture nothing short of astonishing in sharpness and dimensionality. The lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mix does justice to A.R. Rahman's Oscar-nominated scoring, as well as the fine ambient details and subjective sound effects involved in telling Ralston's story.

Several intriguing bonus features add value, beginning with an audio commentary with director Danny Boyle, producer Christian Colson, and co-writer Simon Beaufoy. Boyle always makes for friendly and interesting company, and the trio here nicely keep up the chat in explaining how the film made it to screens, including casting James Franco, the shoot, and reactions to the material.

Seven "Deleted Scenes" (34:13, HD) include a twenty-minute alternate ending.

"Search & Rescue" (14:51, HD) gathers the real Ralston and the key players in the incidents depicted in the film to tell their version of what happened and why.

"127 Hours: An Extraordinary View" (35:30, HD) is a behind-the-scenes documentary with cast and crew interviews, as well as invaluable, fascinating footage, from the set, of Boyle directing Franco.

The short film "The God of Love" (18:46, HD) is the very same short that—only two days before the Blu-ray's release—won NYU student Luke Matheny the Best Live Action Short Film award; it in no way relates to 127 Hours, but it's a nice bonus feature all the same.

In addition to the Digital Copy, there's a BD-Live Exclusive: "James Franco in Conversation with Theatre/Opera Director Peter Sellars" (3:53, HD) at the Telluride Film Festival.

Review gear:
Panasonic Viera TC-P55VT30 55" Plasma 1080p 3D HDTV
Oppo BDP-93 Universal Network 3D Blu-ray Disc Player
Denon AVR2112CI Integrated Network A/V Surround Receiver
Pioneer SP-BS41-LR Bookshelf Speaker (2)
Pioneer SP-C21 Center Speaker
Pioneer SW-8 Subwoofer

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