127 Hours?

[rm]

So I need to watch stuff for SAG Awards voting.

But...

127 Hours ...

It's not a gore squick. But about the only stuff I can't watch (which is why I still haven't seen that movie I wanted to see about the clone kids) is medical stuff that's presented as punishment/fetishization.

Or rather, it's not that I can't watch it. It's that it makes me not okay. For like days. Weeks. Even when it's the right choice in the art in question.

(see: the Valerie's Letter part of the V for Vendetta film. It's 6 or so minutes of PERFECT filmmaking. I'd be regretful if I'd hadn't watched it. But even thinking of it makes me feel in my head a way I don't know how to describe to you, but it's super fucking unpleasant -- if you've read posts I've made in the past (that are locked now) about my medicalized childhood this makes slightly more sense

other examples of what I can't take: that experimentation scene in Being Human).

Anyway, should I watch 127 Hours or not? I figure since the dude's alone, I'm probably okay. But cameras can be as punishing as other characters.

Comments

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

I figured I couldn't make it through 127 Hours so I didn't watch it -- and I don't have your background. That said, I found V for Vendetta moving and something I watch every year. (It means more now that you've explained the letter scene's effect on you.)

[gummitch.livejournal.com]

the dude's alone

Don't know if it will have the same impact, (and I haven't yet seen it), but I've read there are hallucinations and flashbacks, or possibly flashbacks that are hallucinations. During which, presumably, he is not 'alone'.

[ubixtiz.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the examples you mention, but I wouldn't describe the gore in 127h as punishment or fetishisation.

[evil-girraffe.livejournal.com]

Much of the movie is spent on the central character acknowledging that his predicament is his own responsibility. It sort of focuses on how he has tendencies towards loneliness and keeping people at a distance in his life, and relates it to how those actions lead to the situation where he's trapped and has to take extreme measures to survive. I don't know if you'd interpret that as "self punishment" but I hope that summary is some help.

It's a good film but not so amazing that you should feel any guilt over skipping it.

(Also, Valerie's story FTW. It's my favorite moment in fiction, bar none.)

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

It would freak me the fuck out. Hell, it freaked me out when I first heard the news, since I live in the same state -- I couldn't believe they made a movie of it.

OTOH, I was also totally repulsed by the movie they made of the guy who went to alaska and starved to death -- I see the two movies as similar.

Here via friendsoffriends

[becky-monster.livejournal.com]

I watched this last week (wrote about it on my lj as well) and I can understand your concern. If it was any other director bar Danny Boyle (or possibly Christopher Nolan) I would *never* have gone to see this.

My gore squick - let me show it to you!;) To give you a clue 28 Days Later and Alien are my absolute limits for anything to do with blood and gore.

I can safely say that(imo) it's not fetishised and it's not punishment. 'Redemtive' would be closer to the mark.

Yes, there is a scene that looks a little CSI-ish but on the whole Boyle presents the cutting scene without embellishment. Which is as it should be.

As a viewer, I felt *compelled* to watch (despite the fact that I thought the arms of the seat were going to crumple under my hands because I was grabbing on for grim death!) as I'd made it that far and if Ralston (James Franco makes this film) could do that, I couldn't wuss out now. It needed to be witnessed... if that makes a blind bit of sense?.

It's not an easy thing to watch but it's worth it. And so my search for a Danny Boyle film that doesn't make me mildly freak out first time I watch it... continues!

I hope that's useful to you.

[the-epic.livejournal.com]

Oh damn am I ever with you on this one.
I'm not particularly squeamish when it comes to gore in movies (a fortunate/unfortunate byproduct of my career) but when medical/injuries get presented in a torture-porn/fetish kind of way... ugh, that just...

[beeker121.livejournal.com]

I'm not a gore person at all, and I saw 127 hours last week. The editing in that scene was such that just as I was about to turn my head away and hide it would cut to a different shot (his face, wide, something) before it went back. I actually made it through the whole scene without closing my eyes, which is unheard of for me. I don't have your medical issues, but wanted to share a little more information to add to the pile.