Best movie of the year

Rating: 10/10 (5 February 2011)

Nothing is more powerful than the will to live. This is what 127 hours is about. It is a survival tale of a man trapped in an isolated canyon in Utah when a rock fell and crushed his arm against the boulder walls and who ultimately made it out 6 days later with sheer determination. 127 hours marks another remarkable feat by Academy Award Winner director Danny Boyle, best known for his 2008 critically acclaimed heavyweight Slumdog Millionaire.
The film takes off at a dizzying fast pace with random montages of spectators in large sporting events, people hustling and bustling in their lives, leaky faucets, the film's protagonist Aron Ralston (played to pitch perfection by James Franco) packing in a haste and others in a split screen which initially struck out as erratic but are anything but random as they fall into pieces towards the end. The film wastes no time in diving straight to the plot as twenty minutes into the movie, the action begins when paradoxically Aron becomes entrapped.
The next 127 hours (remaining 74 minutes of screen time) chronicles his deteriorating physical conditions and psyche ranging from denial (this is insane), frustration, longing, acceptance and finally the surge of willpower after having a premonition which prompted him to make the hardest decision he's ever made that led to his survival. Like any good piece of cinematic art, the performance of the actors are central to the integrity of the film. And here, James Franco delivers the most riveting performance of his career that solidified him as an immensely talented and serious actor in Hollywood. The film is essentially a one man show with the supporting cast appearing in early parts of the movie and in his flashbacks but we never get bored with Franco. Every facial expression showed his defeat and waning exhaustion with genuine emotions while his resourcefulness and self parodying moments are huge likability factors. However, it is his epiphanies through the life and death situation in which he came to recall what is important in his life that truly made a connection.
The clever uses of Boyle's signature psychedelic flashbacks and hallucinations are brilliantly interwoven into and seamlessly edited in the film which provided an in-depth character development as well as heightened our senses on Aron's desires. The multiple camera angles are explored and utilized in every possible way to fully capture Aron's predicament yet not make the audience feel claustrophobic although shot in a very narrow and contained space. The cinematography is visually stunning as we get landscape and aerial views of the canyons in its full glory. Its amazing how nature can make us feel so miniscule while we enthrall in its beauty. The CGI effects are outstanding at the torrential storm scene but most importantly, the epic score by A.R Rahman stole the show for me. The dark and urgent pounding of tribal beats and the pull of a string instrument when Aron struck a nerve (literally) is most effective but it is the spiritually uplifting music at the end of the movie when Aron is rescued that conveys the gratuitous feelings of being alive in all of us.
127 hours is extremely emotional, captivating, spectacular, stylistic and story telling at its best. It is a not to be missed movie of the year that stands out above the rest and is in a class of its own.