Post by StevePulaski on Apr 21, 2013 16:00:02 GMT -5
Rating: ★★★
Danny Boyle, for years, has made films that are heavily stylistic, although I wouldn't at all call him a director making films that are "style over substance." His 127 Hours and Slumdog Millionaire are great pictures, each empowering a true state of cinema in the sense that they are films that beautifully electrify any screen they're on.
Despite both of those films being very clear in their storylines, I find it more difficult than usual to place them in a certain genre. 127 Hours had elements of comedy, drama, suspense, and emotional weight, and Slumdog Millionaire featured much of the same things, but is often oversimplified as a genre. I cautiously call Trance, Boyle's latest picture, a psychological thriller, but it's more than that.
It stars James McAvoy as an art-auctioneer named Simon, who is beaten on the head during an art-theft at his own gallery. He suffers from amnesia, and is woken up by Franck (Vincent Cassel), the cruel, uncompromising thief who demands to know the whereabouts of a specific painting. Because Simon can't recall where it lies and "enhanced interrogation" doesn't seem to do any justice, Franck seeks the help of hypnotherapist Elizbaeth (Rosario Dawson), who will try and pick the unconscious mind of Simon in a delightfully Freudian-way.
Boyle knows how to employ style to a picture and when to do it, making Trance very unpredictable and showy as a result. His use of angular shot-formation, fast-paced cuts that always remain coherent, sporadic, but enthralling action sequences, loud music, lens flare, and more to give the film a strong effect and a notable impression on its viewer. This is, without a doubt, one of the best scores for a movie this year. There's one song that desperately needs to be listened to, whether you plan to see the film or not. It comes at the point when Simon and Elizabeth are about to become intimate and at the right cue "The Day" by Moby plays in the background, getting louder and stronger as Simon and a newly-shaven Elizabeth (seeing the film will make this sound a lot less...detailed) make love. It's a passionate sequence, and mirrors the act of taking a long drag off a cigarette and feeling the sensational, electric burn.
However, if there's one thing this thriller shows by its one-hundred and one minute runtime, it's that forty or forty-five minutes of material can only stretch so far. The film soon becomes somewhat methodical and long-winded, and after six could-be endings you find yourself a little exhausted. Having said that, the aesthetics and intricate details of the picture make this an interesting endeavor nonetheless, but its way of storytelling is frequently confusing and its moment of clarity doesn't wipe off all of the fog from the premise.
One feature that could've been exciting, if employed conservatively, would be the methods of glitchy-editing and malfunctioning camerawork that was so prominent in the highly-ambiguous trailer for Trance. The trailer made the picture seem incoherent and messy, and while Trance is surprisingly polished, perhaps the scenes where Simon was under hypnosis could've benefited from a little discombobulation in the way of presentation.
Boyle effectively directs Trance and makes it a competent, enjoyable film, even with its overlong runtime. Its leading achievement should be that it can show people that smaller parts of a film that usually go ignored (IE: cinematography, editing, videography, music, atmosphere, tone, mood, presentation) can be the driving force behind what makes it good and achieve passable status. Oh, and it doesn't hurt to have people like McAvoy and Dawson headline your film either.
NOTE: My video review of Trance, www.youtube.com/watch?v=seI9nqvl-Pg
Starring: James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson, and Vincent Cassel. Directed by: Danny Boyle.