2012 BP Contender Series: The Impossible

[Aurelius]

No, but it was made with a very clear "hyper-realistic actioner" style, which undermines any attempts at realism, no matter how hard Greengrass tried to make it "real". Not to mention it robs the film of any humanity and particular vision. A subjective approach would've probably been something far more edifying than this.

The realism part is in the scenes outside the plane.

But how can you have a subjective approach when you don't know all the facts? Like Erik said, Greengrass took what he did know and worked from there. It is a known fact (from the phone calls) that the passengers made an effort to take control of the plane. How this is depicted is subjective, since we have no eyewitness accounts of how that really went down. Manipulative? Perhaps, but I think Greengrass wanted to make those passengers into heroes a bit, because I think this is how Greengrass sees them (a personal opinion in a film? Shudder).

[erikdean]

No, but it was made with very clear "hyper-realistic actioner" style and techniques, which undermines any attempts at realism, no matter how hard Greengrass tried to make it "real". Not to mention it robs the film of any humanity and particular vision. A subjective approach (because, good luck with an objective one) would've probably been something far more edifying than this.

We obviously saw two different films because the style and technique, to me, were the opposite of an "actioner."

[affy18]

I disagree. I think it was meant to put the audience in the place of the passengers as much as possible. I thought it was realistic, effective and incredibly devastating.

Yeah, that's what some said The Impossible was doing, as well. To me it's unjustified, not remotely interesting and rather tasteless and gratuitous.

But at least The Impossible is more honest than United 93 in playing for audience's emotions. It's manipulative and cheap but it owns up to it.

[erikdean]

Yeah, that's what some said The Impossible was doing, as well. To me it's unjustified, not remotely interesting and rather tasteless and gratuitous.

But at least The Impossible is more honest than United 93 in playing for audience's emotions. It's manipulative, cheap but it owns up to it.

Buuuullllll-fucking-shiiiit.

[City Lights]

Yeah, that's what some said The Impossible was doing, as well. To me it's unjustified, not remotely interesting and rather tasteless and gratuitous.

But at least The Impossible is more honest than United 93 in playing for audience's emotions. It's manipulative and cheap but it owns up to it.

[siowafc]

The Impossible is the gif(t) that keeps on giving!

[McTeague]

Buuuullllll-fucking-shiiiit.

Girl, at least you’ve had the decency to acknowledge by yourself, a couple posts above, that you’re defending this film for the same reasons you claim to hate The Impossible, now don’t backtrack, Affy is owning you SO MUCH.

This argument is lovely, lovely! Lord knows if the passengers of that flight had been mostly South-Asian, some “liberals” in here would feel such an urge to protect them from white directors’ manipulative, exploitative hands! But they were mostly white. They don’t need our paternal protection. We can have a blast at a theatre with their suffering!