The Hurt Locker – or the perils of watching a great film in a dark air conditioned cinema when you have a summer cold
September 2, 2009
Hmm. Long blog titles. Maybe the pretentiousness I have long feared while sending my thoughts on film into cyberspace is beginning to take hold.
So – August Bank Holiday presented, as my last post described, a plethora of cinematic joy just waiting to be hoovered up by my willing eyeballs. (Now, there’s an image to play with….best not to linger on that one). I was all psyched to head to the local cinematic establishment and watch Mesrine: Public Enemy Number One as well as the long awaited (on my part) The Hurt Locker and even indulge my mild Seth Rogan ‘thing’ with Funny People. And then, around 3pm on Thursday afternoon, the summer cold began to properly take hold.
When I have a cold, the last, the very LAST thing I want to do with/to myself, my aching sinuses and streaming-or-alternately-very-dry eyes is sit in an air conditioned room for several hours in total darkness surrounded by strangers – if mostly because I get so annoyed by people coughing around me when I’m sickness-free, the noises which eminate when one has a cold, aside from coughing, are far less pleasant. To admit that the summer cold hit my cinematic plans rather hard then would be something of an understatement.
I did, however, battle to make it out of the house, dosed with enough anti-congestion pills to kill an elephant and smelling slightly-more-than faintly of cherry Halls and Olbas oil, to see the Hurt Locker on Saturday night. I had been looking forward to this film ever since seeing the trailers first in the cinema. The trailers themselves promised something deeper than your average (Iraq) war film – gritty, acid-ochre toned cityscapes-as-desert settings, large cast of talented unknowns (for the most part), little American gung-ho war porn, and if a trailer can produce nerve-twanging tension simply from a shot, from above, of a man slowly, carefully, pulling on a wire to reveal he is surrounded by a star-shape of several submerged homemade bombs, just think what a whole 2-plus hours could provide?
Sadly, inexorably, the cold came into play. I have a theory about film – particularly with great films – that the viewing experience is incredibly subjective to circumstance and personal mood on watching. Take, for example, the Lion King. The first time I saw it, I hated it. It didn’t work for me, didn’t gel; it was too cutesy versus too immediately harsh…Cue a few months later, giving the film another shot, where the Disney magic began to make sense in my mind.
Sadly, The Hurt Locker was the second victim of my cold. Considering some scenes – not to mention the opening salvo – contain such nerve-shredding tension that it promoted actual gasps from a (notably reserved) British audience, for me it was the character-driven scenes in between these moments of seat-gripping visual tension (you try finding an adequate synonym – I dare you) that the scenes in between felt, to me, like those polystyrene packing worms which get in the way while you’re searching frantically through the box for your long-awaited shopping purchase. Necessary – absolutely, and without them the whole point of the film is lost, but padding.
Had I been able to breathe properly, had I not had a lingering sick feeling, had I been in full control of my health – I have no doubt the experience would have been much, MUCH better, overall. It’s a brilliantly put together movie, incredibly realistic and crafted with such care and attention to detail by Kathryn Bigelow that I believe this film now holds the record for amount of footage shot versus what actually ended up on screen. Trying to think as objectively as I can, and setting my physical status aside: the core performances are filled by unknowns, but they hold your attention completely, steeped in the characters portrayed on screen rather than bringing baggage of previous big-screen roles played. I firmly believe that should I watch this film again, I would enjoy it more. In fact, I know it to be true. And I would highly, highly recommend it to anyone. It’s a film to be savoured, considered, ruminated upon, and enjoyed on a level far exceeding your usual bang-and-bust blockbuster. It’s not a film to be endured or simply ‘gotten through’.I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this is a better film experience than my condition at the time allowed for. And this a great pity – as you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Sadly, on my first impression – I slumped inbetween the key bomb-detonating set pieces, my attention wandered.
The learning from all this? Unsurprisingly – when you’re not feeling well, stay home in bed with DVDs of Bones, or similar proceedurals. The multiplex is to stay off-limits, particularly for a film you need to pay attention to.
