Swiss Army Man- Profound Emotional Absurdity
It’s hard to sell a film that revolves around Daniel Radcliffe as a farting corpse. I think it’s fair to say, no one has ever seen a film like Swiss Army Man, nor ever even considered it would work so well. And that’s the weirdest thing about this film, I can confidently say it is one of my favourite films of the 21st century. It presents this insane concept through such human eyes, as well as the new directors The Daniels using filmmaking techniques in such a fresh innovative way. You watch this film in an amazed disbelief, it’s entertaining and fun, yet also so absurd that you never truly know where the film is going or how it is going at all.
/
For the majority of the film, we follow Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe as Hank and Manny in two truly ground-breaking performances. Radcliffe pulls of the best performance of his career, with physical acting that I never would have expected from him. He manages to show such emotion in unconventional and subtle ways, the focus on his movement that Radcliffe has put a lot of work into. Dano is excellent as Hank, a lonely and quiet but intellectual person with this charming vulnerability that makes him effortlessly sympathetic. He does have a tendency to mumble through his lines, it works in character but occasionally loses some of the impacts. Their relationship is paced really well, as they are given time to develop and grow but without rushing, they both have this loneliness that works off each other so well.
You have to suspend your disbelief in order to truly enjoy ‘Swiss Army Man’, not only in concept but in stylistic and structural points. Reality is played with in order to tell the perspective and story, it’s almost meta-cinematic with how it approaches its storytelling. It’s a film built on themes and the director’s perspective, it has an aim that is alienating which is to expose and discuss the themes. There is a tendency to get lost and disconnect from the emotional impact of the film, perhaps its a film not designed to be immersive. This does result in a few lines of dialogue and moments be a bit too up front with its purpose, it can be hard to really understand it due to its fast-paced unique structuring. It also struggles tonally, with its overall optimistic feel sometimes undercut with dark and upsetting topics that are brought up but still looked at with the optimistic tone. However, it does manage to somehow make the characters so strong and its message so strong simultaneously, with one of the most incredible endings that is both tense, emotional and heart-warming.
To bring all these themes together the film boasts a tight cinematic style. An outstanding colour palette that uses its setting brilliantly, playing with contrast as a means of visual storytelling. The colours, of course, come from fantastic mise-en-scene, specifically the film’s abstract set design, with such a clear aesthetic that feels convincingly naturalistic but equally absurd. There are several really nice montages that used repeated shots and more surrealistic cinematography that are some of the highlights in the film. I have never witnessed a more creative use of score in a film before, I know this seems like hyperbole, but the score stands out as incredible. In a moment of creative genius, the film decides to have an almost completely acapella score composed by Andy Hull. The pieces often blur the line between diegetic and non-diegetic, as characters begin singing them or they are referenced here and there, I adore a score that was made with such specific intent for this film. It is by no means a set of music I would consider listening to on its own, but the atmosphere and the way it elevates certain scenes is ridiculously skilful.
Notoriously, when it premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and was met with a lot of bad press at its release due to audiences dismissing it as slapstick absurdity. Which is by no means incorrect, it is a very funny film and the comedy is largely fart-jokes, but it is the way it uses with tight dialogue and a profound dark storyline. I would describe it as a film that is equal parts about nothing as it is about everything, it is an experiment through and through. Can a film about a farting corpse discuss such dark and pressing themes? In my opinion it can but a lot of people would disagree. And that is fair, it’s a film that you can love or hate, but a lot of the entertainment comes from the vertigo of the absurdity.