Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Rating: 7/10 (30 April 2012)

I watched this movie yesterday after having heard so much about this guy's adventure in the Utah's Canyonlands National Park where Aron Ralston (James Franco) had made his routine to venture all on his own and jump from rock to rock in his bike, carelessly defying death with every move he made.
It's exhilarating to watch this daredevil and seeing how he breathes danger and nature, he loves this place so much that he's almost forgotten about the rest of the world, it's like he's become a loner who enjoys his time more when he's alone in the wild than when he's around his family. Yet he records every moment along the way with his camcorder and camera, he chronicles his journey as if he just wanted everyone to live through his every adventure and be able to tell the story: I survived this, I survived that...
After parting ways from a couple of very attractive young girls who were lost in the wilderness of this beautiful and astonishing park, Aron decides to take a shortcut back to his truck in order to get ready to party with these girls later on that evening. There's all these cracks in the mountain that allow very little space to go through it, it's like being caught inside a giant maze where there's no safe way out unless you're as experienced as Aron is. His confidence allows him to jump as a jaguar from rock to rock without care... Until the unthinkable happens.
He falls along with a giant boulder that pretty much smashes his hand and forearm and traps him in the middle of nowhere. His initial reaction is to scream for help but as the camera zooms out we realize it's almost impossible for anyone to hear him. He's literally caught between a rock and a hard place as his self titled book is called and he must find a way to chip away from this boulder to free his hand and arm from the boulder.
What I most liked about the movie is not so much the fact that he had to resort to drinking his own urine, or the fact we were witnessing a man severing his own arm to liberate himself and find his way back home. It's more interesting to focus in what was going through his mind while he was trapped all this time alone in the freezing cold temperature, suspended up in the air with little food and water to sustain himself. I think what came through at the end was a man who recovers himself, a person who's forced to look at himself and see how selfish he's been, how he's shut out everyone in his life to pursue these adventures. He was destined to fall at that precise time, in that precise place as he himself describes it: "You know, I've been thinking. Everything is... just comes together. It's me. I chose this. I chose all this. This rock... this rock has been waiting for me my entire life. It's entire life, ever since it was a bit of meteorite a million, billion years ago. In space. It's been waiting, to come here. Right, right here. I've been moving towards it my entire life. The minute I was born, every breath that I've taken, every action has been leading me to this crack on the out surface." Aron Ralston Sometimes, we have to go through a tragedy, a harrowing experience of this kind to realize how precious our lives are. As Aron was cutting through his arm in his last attempt at making it out of there alive a vision of his unborn child was presented to him. People may not believe this is a sign that God exists, but Aron did. There are moments in one's life where we have to stop and thank Him for opening our eyes, if just for a little bit, to realize how much we are loved and appreciated and how we depend on others and how others depend on you.
On more than one occasion I have stopped and thought: what would have happened if I hadn't gone there, if I hadn't taken the chance, if I hadn't listened... Where would I be? I thank God that I had a chance to open up my eyes and see what was in front of me, kick myself in the ass and move on with my life... God works in very mysterious ways and it's in the darkest moments that we find the light.
We all carry this boulder on our shoulders, we just gotta know when to let it go...