Film: Farewell to arm

Unless you’ve been living under a rock — in which case, keep it to yourself; I’m done with rocks — you’ll have already heard about 127 Hours.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock — in which case, keep it to yourself; I’m done with rocks — you’ll have already heard about 127 Hours. It’s the latest film from Danny Boyle and is based on the true story of Aron Ralston, the poster boy of survival who, as a 27-year-old in 2003, went climbing in the Bluejohn Canyon in Utah and got his forearm trapped between a boulder and the canyon wall. After five days of shoving, tugging, chiselling, screaming, reminiscing and hallucinating, he eventually looks at his blunt penknife, looks at his arm, and cuts it off between elbow and wrist.

This may well be an amazing film. It has already been reviewed as ‘flawless’, ‘a work of genius’ and ‘pure adrenalin’ but, I’m afraid, I cannot verify any of this, as I couldn’t watch so much of it. Boyle has stressed it’s not just about a man who cuts his own arm off; that it’s more about the mental journey this man makes and his discovery that he needs other people, but you know what? Self-amputation, it turns out, is a bit of a deal-breaker for me. I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

This, apparently, is the film Boyle wanted to make before Slumdog Millionaire, but couldn’t. An action film during which the hero is pinned down in the same spot throughout? A man in a hole? How can this be cinematic? He needed Millionaire’s Oscar-winning leverage to get the project off the ground, but I don’t know if I’m thankful.

The film opens exuberantly and sexily enough with Aron (James Franco) careering across the awesome, awesome canyon — tremendous cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak — on his bike, meeting two female hikers, and frolicking with them in an underground pool.