Got a chance to finally catch the much talked and discussed about 127 hours last night and must admit was blown away..I was a bit anxious at the beginning, what with people comparing it to everything from the Blaire Witch Project to the Wrestler and a host of others fainting and having a heart attack. I steeled myself mentally to cope with any gore on show and with a heart of steel, settled into the comfy seats at PVR.
What stayed with me even after the movie was though, definitely not the gore but the mental turmoils of a man faced with imminent and slow death. While with my infinite girth there is virtually no possibility of being trapped between a rock and a hard place and definitely not canyoneering in any sense of the word, the often psychedelic hallucinations that the protagonist experiences is something that could be related to. He apologizes to his mother for not returning her call, he rues over the fact that he didn’t share his plans with his co-worker, he chides himself for buying a cheap, China-made knife thingy and for not bothering to look for his Swiss knife enough, he dreams of getting a final sip of chilled beer and even humorously remarks that his pee would settle in a few days and begin to taste a bit like Sauvignon Blanc. Despite his adventurous, wild child ways and free spirit, the protagonist at heart remains like a lot of us. And as with a lot of people, only when faced with the prospect of losing his life, does he realize its true meaning and what are the most important things to him-his family and his loved ones. There is a moving good bye message he records that will definitely choke you up.
And like a light bulb , he finally comes to the conclusion that everything in life happens for a reason. Every step he took, every breath he took and every decision he made in life was done so that ultimately he could end up with his hand wedged beneath the boulder. And it was the divine purpose of the boulder, ever since it was a tiny meteorite that fell from the sky millions of years ago, to wait till he came along, looking for the Blue John canyon, to fall on his hand. This philosophy has guided me throughout my life, giving me hope when things have been bad. Aron Ralston, at his moment of realization, finally learnt to see the big picture and lived to tell the tale. How many amongst us have the luck to gain that kind of wisdom and live an entirely productive life by it? Sad, that some of life’s best lessons are learnt only when death stares at you in your eyes.