What else was he gonna do? (2024)

What else was he gonna do?

There are times when one can make a big mistake and then they will spend a long time thinking about it. There was this man who went over Niagara Falls inside of a large rubber ball. On its way down, it never hit the bottom. Instead, the ball somehow got stuck on its way down. When he landed, he had expected his team to cut him out. Oops! Oops! This is how Aron Ralston describes his moment of glory in 127 hours. He didn’t tell anyone where he was going hiking in the wilderness then he ended up with his forearm jammed between a boulder and the canyon wall at the bottom of a narrow crevice. Oops.

We all heard about this one. Ralston emerged from being trapped for more than five days by amputating his right arm below its elbow joint so as to leave himself alive after all that happened. But now an upbeat resilient person who has returned to rock climbing after filing a plan I hope, going with someone else and not leaving behind Swiss Army knife again The knife would have been much handier than his Swiss army knife which served multiple purposes including opening wine bottles and cutting things like ropes used in mountain climbing. Taking everything into account, I think that losing it under circumstances like these might be better for him.

How would you have handled this? How about me? If I could even do it at all, I’m not sure . It is not only an ordeal for Ralston but also some people in the audience reportedly faint during certain scenes of this movie which is said to be very gory at times. However considering what Danny Boyle has crafted with “127 Hours” starting from such harrowing beginnings, it’s damn good film. Aha! Good fun.

James Franco plays as just one actor through most of the film in one location . To begin there’s a playful prologue where an underwater cave is swum in by Ralston and a couple of girl hikers. Other characters from his life appear to him during moments of hallucination. However he summed up the story in the title of his book Between a Rock and a Hard Place.

Franco does an okay job of presenting two sides to the character of Ralston. He’s an overconfident, daring adventurer who believes in himself and enjoys taking risks, and (2) he is rational yet pig headed enough to go through with such action as tearing off his flesh at the elbow joint. One side gets him into trouble while the other is what saves him.

Is this film worth seeing? Yes, compulsively. Movies like these don’t move fast or slow; they all seem to be happening at once. They play on our darkest fears of being stuck somewhere with no way out that we’re aware of . Edgar Allan Poe touched upon this theme through various mediums. We could try imagining how lucky Ralston must feel for still having some solid ground underfoot if suddenly one imagines that boulder falling and leaving a man hanging from one arm high up above the ground.

All of a sudden, the realm he knew became deeply demarcated. There is the gulf. Above it spans a slice of sky, with an eagle flying over on its usual route. The things that he had brought along were: a video camera, some water, little food and his small tool which was not sufficient enough. He will not take long to conduct an inventory. Crying out for help is useless; there is no one around here. Besides, the two women who went camping have left without realizing that they have lost him because their journey happened to flow in such direction. It seems impossible for anyone to chance upon him here someday. Or else he will perish or do something.

“127 Hours” feels like an effort at achieving the impossible in film making. This movie also features Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak as cinematographers thereby giving Boyle’s work a wide landscape of Utah wilderness plus very specific details about Ralston’s part of it all. His editor Jon Harris did this delicate cut where you see but don’t seem to see the arm being severed. Worst moment for us as viewers isn’t what we’re watching but what we’re hearing right then (Franco). Most people haven’t heard it before but everyone knows exactly what it means.

Most movies involve pain and bloodshed anyway; although hardly ever are these events intensified to match reality for fear of disgust instead of amusement by audiences who like being entertained rather than revolted by films themselves (Kramer 23). And we sometimes think that these terrible things cannot really touch us because we feel like heroes who do not die in movies either (Franco).

“127 Hours” takes away those filters (Franco). By becoming someone else, we can be held in the canyon. We cut our own skin. The brutality of pain better captured through movies than expressed is death (Kramer 34). I cannot even imagine what that must have felt like to him. Maybe it was easier for Ralston because his choice meant that he would not suffer indefinitely.

He sounds pretty tough. Given that he is not a hero at all but rather an athletic man caught by one ill-fated decision, the film intentionally avoids making him into such a figure. He has to cut off his arm. Fortunately, he managed to do it (Franco). Also perhaps there could still be a news item about a man whose body had been discovered long after when only the arm was halfsevered on it (Kramer 43). This doesn’t make him a hero though; he merely did what was required of him. And we too are capable of taking such actions as well.

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