When the Polish director Milos Forman was filming One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in the ‘70s, he made a wildly controversial casting decision Since the film took place in a mental institution, he decided to cast the hospital’s real inhabitants as extras-all of the patients, nurses, and doctors in the background of Cuckoo’s scenes are real people. When asked about his reason for this unusual choice, Forman simply replied, “it has to be real.” In fact, Jack Nicholson was appalled by the other cast members’ loony behavior when he arrived on location, asking whether or not the actors ever stopped acting. “This is real,” was the reply.
Alejandro Gonz?lez I?rritu’s new film 21 Grams shares this reality. It has no fantasy, no magic, no payoff-just people and their emotions. Even the plot is more consequence than storyline.
As best as it can be described, the plot centers around three people’s lives in the aftermath of a fatal accident. One has lost, one has taken, and one has received. Naomi Watts plays a loving wife and mother who has survived a drug-consuming youth to become a successful and happy wife and mother. Benicio del Toro plays a born-again Catholic whose fervent spirituality makes him forget his past crimes. Sean Penn, the story’s final and central character, is an unhappily married mathematics professor whose life is slowly expiring while he waits for a heart transplant. All this is before the accident that sets them on the same trajectory.
I?rritu is from Mexico, a country where he filmed and became famous for the critically acclaimed Amores Perros. Much of the crew that worked on the Mexican movie were brought into the 21 Grams project, including the writer, production designer, composer, and cinematographer. The film was originally conceived in Spanish and set in Mexico City, but, dozens of drafts later, takes place in the middle of the American landscape. Many of the elements of I?rritu’s first film are present here, including the grainy cinematography, the strong colors, the shifting time frame, and a tragic accident that drives the characters.
In order to keep the film “real,” the director shot it on location in Memphis, Tenn., using only a couple of hand-held cameras at a time. No sets were built for this film-all of the houses, churches, hospitals, and bars are real locations. The camera is always close to the characters and rarely stops moving, which results in the viewer’s feeling of actually being involved with the protagonists. The extras-the churchgoers, bar patrons, doctors, and nurses that inhabit the background-those are all real people, too.
Although speaking parts are played by professional actors (the actors in the main trio boast one Academy Award and four nominations) they might as well not have been. Watts’, del Toro’s and Penn’s performances are of such high caliber that they often don’t need words to convey their pain and need. Virtually every moment of 21 Grams is emotional, and so the material requires every actor to be at the top of his game.
To exalt the emotional factor of the film, its editor uses the time-shifting narration to let the audience know, from the start, what is going to happen to these unfortunate people. Within the first ten minutes, the viewer knows who will be shot, who will sleep with who, and that sadness pervades their story. This is what gives the audience an emotional reaction. The viewer need not guess what will happen next, because he already knows; he can do nothing but feel for these people who are as yet unaware of their fates. There are more tears shed in this movie than in a traditional soap opera, yet none of it seems contrived or irrelevant; rather, 21 Grams is simply intensely emotional.
Even if the film receives no acting awards it is still powerful and touching. 21 Grams stands alone as a work of art, independent of awards and reviews.
The film’s strong point, then, is its realistic exploration of life, death, and the emotions that pervade them. Every element of the film contributes to this realism, including the choppy narrative, which reflects each character’s fragmented life.
One of the viewers in the Alice Tully Theatre, where the film was screened this Wednesday for The New York Film Festival, asked the director why so many of his contemporaries at this year’s Festival chose to comment on guilt and loss. He simply explained that “life is about loss. You lose everything-your innocence, your hair, your teeth, your health, and finally your life.” Now more than ever people have realized how easily life is taken and how often tragedy occurs. How we deal with that, well, that’s stuff for a feature film.
21 Grams opens in select theaters nationwide on Nov. 21.
