Movie Review

Swiss Army Man

I’ve learned recently that I am into “magical realism.” A phrase which here means that everything is realistic except for a select few instances, and those few instances aren’t seen as super out of the ordinary except for when they are. If that seems like a mouthful, just think “everything but THAT thing” or if that awkward “elephant in the room” was not so much awkward but more “just there”. Anyways, whether it's The Leftovers or ,this film, Swiss Army Man, magical realism is a rich source for understanding how to explain complex feelings and emotions while also delivering an interesting story with interesting characters.

I first heard of Swiss Army Man on the nerdist podcast with Daniel Radcliffe. He talked about this small film he’d been working on that was going through the festival circuit and he really hoped someone would pick it up and distributed. The second time I heard of the film was when it went to the Sundance Film Festival and large amounts of people walked out of the film due to a corpse farting, non stop, in the film (the corpse being played by Harry Potter himself.) After hearing this news, I decided I would check out the trailer, and I was very much intrigued.

Let me start off by saying that I like seeing divisive films. Sometimes I end up on the side that doesn’t care for a certain film all that much, but I know that I tried and that makes all the difference. In the case of Swiss Army Man, however, I feel bad for the people that decided to not give the film a chance. I feel bad for them because it was their type of thinking that the film was trying to abolish in some way. (To be explained further in the blog.) Instead of breaking the film up into cast, set design, music, etc, I have elected to break it into 2 parts: Technical and Thematic. There is rich territory for both and trying to delve into everything is a much longer blog.

TECHNICAL

Technically, this film looks amazing. There have been many movies about people trapped on islands, and you can tell that the filmmakers rely on the beauty of the island to make a good looking shot. The Daniels (the two directors named Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan) didn’t just rely on the beautiful scenery. The way the colors react to each other and how light moves through spaces is pure candy to look at. It also makes the film look like a dream, but a dream that you didn’t know was a dream until you wake up (making the film look as magically realistic as the story.)

There are a number of “gags” (tricks to make something impossible look real) in the film and it truly makes you scratch your head and think, “How did they do that?” The budget of this film is only 3 million dollars, which is far from that of a blockbuster. That being said, it’s not like I can’t see how they could do it with “only” 3 million dollars, but I definitely don’t understand how they did the things they did (like snapping a giant log with Radcliffe’s arm or having Paul Dano ride Radcliffe like a jet ski in the middle of the ocean) and making it look real. You definitely can’t tell what tricks they used to make everything seem in camera.

The music is another beast entirely. The music (by Andy Hull and Robert McDowell) is amazing and often uses the voices of the main stars to make up the score. This is used to explain what the characters are thinking in the moment without having to tell the audience outright while also not having the actors have to act it out. While I can see another person calling it “lazy” I see it as a good way to introduce dramatic irony, allowing us to know what’s going on in a character’s head and what that character does to contradict what he thinks.

THEMATIC

What I like best about this film is it’s themes. It takes the concept of farting and uses it as a metaphor for emotions. I understand how that kind of sounds dumb, but it is actually quite brilliant. The film also begs the question “How would you explain life to a dead guy?” This is what is most interesting to me. In the film, Radcliffe asks just about a million questions about sex, love, feelings, and why you can’t do certain things around other people. Radcliffe’s character is even named Manny, as if to symbolize man (which sounds really pretentious.)

Hank (Paul Dano) is seen attempting to kill himself in the beginning of the film and it is only with Manny that he learns to appreciate the things he has and what he is able to do with the life that he once saw as worthless and led him to run away and get lost on an island in the first place. By explaining life to a dead person, you can truly understand all the things you get to do that is great. And in the link above you also get the side of a dead person who, since the worst has already happened to them, doesn’t see the point of going into a society without a 100% guarantee that you get to be happy living life the way you want it.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

This is definitely a movie that everyone who ever wondered “What’s the point” should see. I can watch it 1000 times and still find something new or some other appreciation for life. The director’s intent with this film is to make you laugh at the first fart and cry for the last one. For me, it worked with flying colors. I will link below to more explanations for the film, some reviews, some more music excerpts because I think they are also worth checking out.

Music: Intro, Cotton Eye Joe, Montage, Cave Ballad

Reviews and Analysis: PrettyMuchIt, Swiss Army Man Explained