Staggering

Rating: 7/10 (26 February 2011)

When you walk into 127 Hours, you know what you'll get; a film about a man who cuts it's arm off. I'll admit, I wasn't very happy to go see it, but I'm an Oscar-fan-boy, so I had to go before the "big night".
It delivered in every possible way.
If you live under a rock, 127 Hours is a movie about a man who is in the exact same position. An arrogant hiker falls into a cliff with a boulder landing on his right arm and gets stuck. It's not really a typical storyline for the big screen, but they've pulled it off.
First of all, let me tell you about Danny Boyle. I'm not a very big fan of this Britih director. Slumdog Millionaire remains one of my most hated movies and The Beach wasn't a masterpiece either. In 127 Hours however, the man shows all of his skills. Split screen, wide shots, flashbacks; the lot. He, in combination with his cinematographers Enrique Chediak and Anthony Dod Mantle, created an interesting contrast. The cliff looks extremely small and claustrophobic, while the flashback-shots look wide and open. Even when their shot inside a car.
It is however, the movie of James Franco. He is no less then epic in this movie, creating an arrogant chap who becomes more and more self-conscious during his time under the boulder. His great performance tops during the scene where he acts like he is interviewing himself. In that scene, his optimistic arrogant self turns into a scared and exhausted man in such a gripping way, you know only a truly great actor could pull this off. Franco is that great an actor.
And then "the scene". The amputations scene has had quite some attention. It had people vomiting, stroking and fainting and I have to say, some visitors leaved the room just before "the scene" was due to begin. I was seriously nervous about it too, having a thick stomach, but not the most blood-proof eyes. I'm glad I've seen it though. The amputation is as gruesome as you'd expect. As explicit as you may not have wanted, but as great as you'd wish. The intense and loud music, the amazing, not to say epic, editing combined with the journey you've been pulled into the hour before, makes this scene one of the best, intense and quite simply epic apotheoses ever in cinema.
It's a masterpiece. It's not about an amputation, but about the journey that makes him do it.