Trance (2013) - Danny Boyle

Oh dear. I wanted to like Trance, I really did. And for the first ten minutes or so I did. The art heist that kicks the film off and sets the story in motion is a thrilling piece of cinema. Typical Danny Boyle, looks gorgeous, booming soundtrack and very very fast paced. But then for some reason the voice over narration disappears (always a bad sign), if you’re going to use something like that (voice over) then at least have the grace to have it throughout the film, otherwise it feels like what it is - tacked on to explain things to the audience, information that a director of Boyle’s stature should be able to convey via images. But the voice over being given the heave-ho is the least of Trance’s problems. Where to begin?

Well let’s start with that wonderful beginning. Danny Boyle films have always had a strong start, think about how Trainspotting and Shallow Grave sucked you into the film straight away. Then consider probably his most audacious opening, that of 28 Days Later. Which is still just mouth open, jaw on the floor, how the fuck did they do that astounding. When it comes to endings Boyle isn’t quite so strong, he tends to slap a huge anthem on the soundtrack and over-egg everything a bit, not always but sometimes. Sunshine started well but around the halfway mark became something entirely different, same with 28 Days Later. Trance suffers the same fate but almost from the start of the film.

Simon (James McAvoy) is an art auctioneer with a gambling problem, Franck (Vincent Cassel) is a heavy type who is going to steal a Goya painting from the auction house that Simon works at, with Simon’s help. So far, so ordinary. Except Simon manages to swipe the picture before giving it to Franck and thanks to a bump on the head, can’t remember what he’s done with said painting. Deep sigh, it get’s worse. Enter Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson) a hypnotherapist who is hired to find out just what the hell is going on by talking softly to Simon. Now apparently she can not only make him remember things, but also make him forget other things, oh and shuffle around his memories. Cough, cough. By this point you’re already being asked to suspend an awfully large amount of disbelief. This isn’t the Inception world of Science-Fiction, this is supposedly set in the here and now of London. Basically things get weirder, and initial opinions about characters change as the film progresses, as does the whole tone of the film. There are huge chunks of the running time where you will not have a clue what’s going on, is he hypnotized now, or is this actually happening sort of stuff. And that’s all well and good, but you need a damn good ending to explain away everything that’s happened. Trance doesn’t have that ending. Everything (well almost everything) is rattled off in a monologue towards the end of the film, and it doesn’t work. It’s too insane, too far out to make any sort of sense. And after all that Boyle has the nerve to try the Inception spinning top ending. Sorry Danny but you haven't earnt that mate.

Trance is a film that demands to be watched multiple times, so that when you know the story you’ll be able to sit back and nod as it all unfolds second or third time around. Unfortunately it’s simply not a good enough film to ever want to watch again. The three main leads are all perfectly fine, like all of Boyle’s films it’s well edited and looks impressive (Anthony Dod Mantle is still on DoP duties so no huge surprise there). It’s well directed too, there’s lots of glass and reflections underscoring the theme of duality, and it’s got a nice huge electronic score (by Underworld’s Rick Smith). But the story is just too silly, and by the time it’s over you’ll be thinking about how Breaking Bad's going to end or what to have for dinner, anything but the nonsense you've just finished watching.

At the end of the day I still love Danny Boyle, I love him for trying things, for never getting stuck in the rut of making the same film over and over, for not being scared of being British and embracing the American glossiness that most British directors do so badly. I love that his films are pure entertainment, for someone that claims Alan Clarke and Nic Roeg as two of his biggest influences he couldn’t make films any further away from their output if he tried. Boyle makes films to be watched on a Saturday night when your plans have fallen through, and you’d still rather be out. For all his faults, his films are watchable and fun and always interesting. There’s no deep message, like Tarantino it’s all surface, and there’s nowt wrong with that. It’s just that Trance is the worst film he has made in a long time. And I haven’t even mentioned Rosario Dawson’s totally out of place full frontal scene, and the way it’s explained away in such a pathetic way. Please don’t fuck up Porno Danny. Please.

127 Hours (2010) - Danny Boyle

As a nipper I grew up watching all sorts of films form all different types of directors, or so I thought. Now from the comfort of my thirties I can look back and see that what they mainly had in common was the fact that visuals were priority number one in their films. From Ridley Scott through to Tim Burton and a whole host of others, it was visuals first everything else second. The thing is that with each passing year those films become less and less interesting for me. I don't think it's their fault either, after all the films they made haven't changed, it's me that's changed. I'm just no longer impressed by whiz bang visuals. In these CGI days where anything is possible part of the fun of film making has died a little. More than that though I was quite happy to just watch a film purely for what was on the screen, I didn't really need any deep meaning or sometimes even a story. If it looked great then I was happy. As I say though, not any more since I've been digging further and further back I've found that I need more than a visual feast. That's not to say I don't enjoy a good looking film, I just need that to be the backdrop for a story of some sort, something that will keep me coming back for repeat viewings long after the sight of seeing New York destroyed (yet again) has worn thin.

So with all that in mind, Danny Boyle should be a director that I hate. He throws masses of visual information onto the screen, sometimes his films look more like the kind of thing you'd expect to see projected on the walls of a 90's superclub, rather than something you'd slip into your DVD player. Not only that but he edits everything to within an inch of it's life and always slaps a huge banging soundtrack over it all. Not my cup of tea at all, and yet he hardly ever fails to drag me into his films. Unlike the Bays and McG's of this world he hangs his films on a human story, normally something the viewer can relate to, and even if you can't you still find yourself sucked in within the opening scenes. He's a bastard like that.

I would never have believed that I would enjoy Slumdog Millionaire, I remember reading that he was making a film based around Who Wants To Be a Millionaire and thought no way do I want to see that. But see it I did, and as usual by the end of the first ten minutes I was hooked. The same pretty much goes for this film, some extreme sports type dude gets trapped in a crevice and after a few days cuts his arm off to free himself. Why would I want to see that? As a documentary possibly, but as a Hollywood film 'Based On Real Life Events', um no ta. I'll just watch Touching the Void instead.

But of course I did see it, and the thing is as a slab of entertainment I thought it worked. I can't say that it stayed with me for weeks afterwards, but for the few hours it was on the gogglebox it did it's job. I like the whole one location thing too, Hitchcock always manged so much with that idea. Boyle approaches it in a slightly different way to the big fella, but he manages to keep you gripped for the running time nonetheless. I'm glad he didn't feel the need to cut away to other people in the way Ron Howard did during Apollo 13. So sticking with Aron Ralston (James Franco) for the whole 127 hours was a good call, and probably the thing that I liked most overall about the film.

But what you really want to know about is that scene isn't it? Well it's painful to watch, but then it should be shouldn't it. It's not over in a flash, and the sound design is immaculate, not as traumatic as you'd think but pretty grim all the same. I did almost chew off my bottom lip whilst watching it though, so maybe it's a little more horrendous than I'm remembering. James Franco who I only really knew as the wooden actor behind Harry Osborn in the Spiderman films, is actually quite good. He's got a way to go before he hits Daniel Day-Lewis standards, but in this he proved he can at least act.

So Boyle together with cinematographers Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak go all out, zooming the camera hundreds of feet up into the air, forcing it deep into a water bottle, there are split screen effects, slow motion, blurred shots and just about any other kind of camera technique you care to mention. Does it do anything for the film? Not really. I think it does more for the audience if truth be told. After all how many punters would go and see this without all the above and not get bored? Word of mouth would be terrible, and the name of the game at Boyle's level is bums on seats. But I'm not complaining since as I said I thoroughly enjoyed it all.

Boyle usually ends his films with a euphoric song (something he's done since Trainspotting), and this film is no exception. It's a shame since what should have been an emotional ending is handled badly by having a huge fuck off Sigur Rós track pounding across it. We should have stayed in Ralston's head, after all we had been with him throughout the film. But there you go - what do I know?