Cloverfield
(dir. Matt Reeves)
Bad Robot
boom... BOOM... BOOM...
MULTIPLE SIGHTINGS OF CASE DESIGNATE "CLOVERFIELD"
CAMERA RETRIEVED AT INCIDENT SITE U.S. 447
AREA FORMERLY KNOWN AS "CENTRAL PARK"
From the moment this film kicks in, with a pounding THX rumble and a Classified Department of Defence logo stamped over a black screen, you know you're in for a ride. It's the 9/11 Godzilla, a Blair Witch Ghidorah, a Handicam Ebirah loaded with post-millenium lo-fi paranoia, confusion and panic, that lives up to all the Slusho/1-18-08 viral hype.
The conceit is that we're watching found footage from the night of a mysterious attack on NYC. We start at a going away party. A bunch of hip New Yorkers are hanging out while one of them is walking around trying to get the others to say nice things for their buddy before he heads off to Japan. It's a nice touch - there's a reason for the camera to be there, it makes total sense that you'd keep filming if something like this really did happen - there's a few scenes with other people simultaneously freaking out and getting their phone-cams out. It also gets us used to the jump-cut edits before everything goes nuts.
And when it does? It's a rush - you're thrown in with the WTF reactions of the partygoers, rushing up the stairs in their heels to the roof to see what's blown the city's power and is making such a noise outside. Instead of the omniscient perspective we're used to in monster movies — skipping around from the military, to the government, to the ordinary guy who knows the secret to defeating the thing if only he could just get to whoever's in charge, and back to the monster — here we're stuck on the ground with the crowds screaming through the streets, rushing into electronic stores and catching snatches of news on TVs before zipping back outside where tanks are suddenly crashing through the traffic and there's the briefest of glimpses of something smashing skyscrapers or chucking the Statue Of Liberty's head around...
It's a great concept, simply realised. The terror's effective, the shooting style produces some brilliantly frustrating moments when the camera's dropped on the ground so you can't really see what's happening - the old less-is-more trick, but thrown into the mix here, one that captures that sense of a bunch of cynical urban citizens who can't quite believe that they're really under siege by some unknown thing.
In a way, that seems to be the point here - it's an obvious allegory for terrorist attack; the sudden unknown presence of "hostile aliens" smashing into the everyday reality of people living their lives without any real grasp of a world outside their own. Smoke billows through the streets, phone signals are lost, no-one knows which way to go until the army show up barking orders through loud-hailers. As a cinematic experience it's pretty visceral - 84 minutes (yes! a short flim at last!) of shakycam is enough to make anyone dizzy - don't sit too near the front for this one.
A creature feature with something to say, Cloverfield delivers on the hype.
Links
Tags
20th Jan 2008 - Tumblr
4