Holes (DVD)

...treasure. In the context of holes however both are magic. I have rarely seen a film cross genres so effectively and the result is a masterpiece whatever your age.

Stanley Yelnats (write it backwards) (played by Shia LaBeouf) has a talent for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. His grandfather would have him believe it’s all the fault of his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather whose actions left the males ...
...Camp Greenlake and it’s 9500 holes in the desert. The cinematography in the opening scenes of the film create a true sense of horror, the wide shots of the camp look like the surface of a far away planet and the thousands of holes become thousands of craters. The tangible sense of heat only serves to confirm the feeling that Camp Greenlake truly is hell on earth. Davis is also responsible for making the Magic Realism of the novel work on the screen. ... more

Peaches and onions may not seem like the perfect combination; but then neither does a film about a work camp for juvenile delinquents, a tale of star-crossed lovers, a western, a fairy tale and a hunt for buried treasure. In the context of holes however both are magic. I have rarely seen a film cross genres so effectively and the result is a masterpiece whatever your age.

Stanley Yelnats (write it backwards) (played by Shia LaBeouf) has a talent for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. His grandfather would have him believe it’s all the fault of his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather whose actions left the males in the family cursed forever and eternity; but Stanley doesn’t believe in curses. That is until a pair of trainers fall from the sky and spark a chain of events that lead Stanley to wind up with an eighteen month sentence at Camp Greenlake, a correctional facility where they believe “if you take a bad boy and make him dig a hole every day in the hot sun, it will turn him into a good boy”. The camp is run by the bitter and sinister Warden (Sigourney Weaver) the tyrannical Mr. Sir (Jon Voight) and the aptly name Dr. Pendanski (Tim Blake Nelson) who’s liberal façade masks a petty and cruel man. Suffice to say there is more to this hole digging than meets the eye and it involves the notorious Kissin’ Kate Barlow (Patricia Arquette) and her doomed romance with a local onion seller (Dulé Hill) which turned her from school mistress to outlaw and has left the town of Greenlake without rain for a hundred years.

If you ask adults who Louis Sachar is, most will struggle. Ask most children (particularly American children) and you will provoke the same recognition and admiration as asking ‘have you ever heard of J K Rowling?’ He is the author of over twenty novels but it is the multi-award winning ‘Holes’ that captured the hearts of a generation of children, and I can see why. Transferring children’s books to film has always been big business and the most recent success is the unstoppable force of the ‘Harry Potter’ franchise. Although I cannot claim to have read either novel watching this film in comparison to ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ offers a sharp contrast. Where Potter is derivative, plundering all children’s and fantasy fiction that has gone before it, ‘Holes’ is startlingly original. Where Potter is slow paced and set in a world where public schools are free, living in a middle class home is the worst torture imaginable and little girls are called Hermione, ‘Holes’ is frenetic and starkly realistic. In fact the only thing these two juggernauts of children’s fiction have in common is magic. The story of ‘Holes’ runs as if written by Gabriel García Márquez. This is Magic Realism for the MTV generation and though magical has more in common with ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ than ‘Harry Potter’.

The wisest choice in the making of this film was to leave the screenplay to the novel’s author (despite his virgin screenwriter status). The script is a beautifully constructed thing Sachar drawing out seemingly unrelated events and characters until they effortlessly intertwine in the film’s astonishingly uplifting conclusion. It is remarkable how briefly and yet thoroughly he can tell a story. The turn of the century romance between Kate and Sam (the onion seller) only has a few minutes of screen time; but was so affecting it made me cry. The flashbacks to different times and places (notably Stanley’s court case, his great great grandfather’s unfortunate lapse of memory and the love story that eventually dooms Greenlake) are dealt with so effectively by Sachar’s script that even a young child wouldn’t be confused. In fact I would recommend many screenwriters writing ‘adult’ films learn from Sachar’s economy and skill in simplifying a seemingly complex story line. What also deserves to be noted about both novel and film is how well Sachar knows children and how he isn’t afraid to show their cruelty and brutality (as well as their compassion and nobility). The relationships formed between the boys in the camp, the unspoken hierarchy, the desperation to belong, the violence; the elements that make Camp Greenlake real are found in every school in every part of the world.

The temptation when dealing with book to film adaptations is to focus on the author at the expense of the director; but this is Andrew Davis’ film. He cleverly kept Sachar as involved as possible in the making of this film; but that is not to say he hasn’t left his own stamp on the material. Davis’ work before ‘Holes’ has been mostly action films from the risible ‘Collateral Damage’ and lightweight but enjoyable ‘Under Siege’ to the sublime set pieces of ‘ The Fugitive’. He claims to be a very visual director and this is perhaps why his film works so well. Davis’ strong vision combined with Sachar’s multi-layered script creates a film as beautiful as it is engaging. The blue green hues used when portraying the story of Stanley’s great great grandfather and the incredibly stupid girl he falls in love with, heighten the fantasy of this (Brothers Grimm–esque) fairy tale. He creates a view of heaven in the idyllic and pastoral town of Greenlake and contrasts it with the now ghost town of Camp Greenlake and it’s 9500 holes in the desert. The cinematography in the opening scenes of the film create a true sense of horror, the wide shots of the camp look like the surface of a far away planet and the thousands of holes become thousands of craters. The tangible sense of heat only serves to confirm the feeling that Camp Greenlake truly is hell on earth. Davis is also responsible for making the Magic Realism of the novel work on the screen. By firmly rooting this film in reality Davis can get away with the plot’s more fantastical twists and turns, little touches like Stanley’s terrible sunburn help us buy into the wider themes of curses and destiny. As do the wonderfully naturalistic performances he gets from his young actors

The cast of ‘Holes’ further serves to demonstrate the dichotomy of fantasy versus reality in the film. From the children in the film we are given wholly believable performances from the adults we get fantastically hammy caricatures. Sigourney Weaver took the part of the Warden on her daughter’s recommendation and her calm rage adds real menace to the character; but then Weaver has always been able to master genuine villainy when it’s called for. Jon Voight is both funny and threatening and it’s to his credit that you’re never totally sure he’s not going to shoot a couple of the young inmates. Praise should also go to Tim Blake Nelson’s councillor, who despite appearances is as nasty a piece of work as his colleagues. Also in the adult cast are Patricia Arquette and the incredibly handsome Dulé Hill, they play their love story with such tenderness I guarantee it will break your heart. Particularly Hill who manages to make “I can fix that” mean “I love you” (much like “As you wish” in ‘The Princess Bride’).

Though the entire child cast is wonderful (never precocious or saccharine) the stand out performances are from Shia LaBeouf and Khleo Thomas (as the monosyllabic ‘Zero’). Davis said he was looking for a young Tom Hanks to play Stanley and what he got was “a cross between Tom Hanks and Dustin Hoffman” and he’s not far off. LaBeouf is mostly known (to me at least) from the children’s show ‘Even Stevens’ in which (as the wisecracking Louis Stevens) he was annoying to say the least. In ‘Holes’ LaBeouf is a revelation his performance making Stanley a true hero, intensely vulnerable and astonishingly noble; but retaining an essentially human fallibility. Thomas looks so young on screen, yet as Zero he is a ball of unexplored rage, for such a young actor to express a lifetime of tragedy only through his eyes is extraordinary. It is to the credit of these young actors that a scene in which the wearied traveller is carried up the almost unassailable mountain by his companion is as touching as that similar scene in ‘The Return of the King’.

In the soundtrack and score I felt there were comparisons to be made with a certain Cohen Brother’s film. Tim Blake Nelson’s appearance and the notion of Magic Realism are not the only things that links this film with ‘O Brother, Where art Thou?’ As well as opening on a work song, Holes also contains a version of ‘Down to the River to Pray’ and some modern folk from Beck. The soundtrack as a whole is very effective and these slices of Americana help to give the film a true sense of location (and putting you in mind of ‘O Brother, Where art Thou?’ is useful as the films are very similar in tone). The score fuses traditional Western with modern Action Adventure again helping to set the film in context. I can even forgive the appearance of Shaggy and the ill-advised rap by the film’s younger cast members that runs over the end credits. The fact these commercial soundtrack choices are pretty much the only concessions Davis makes to more ‘traditional’ modern children’s films makes them an insignificant sell out.

The film is a PG perhaps because Weaver once refers to the idiots surrounding her as “cow turds”. More likely though, it’s because certain sections of the film could prove harrowing for younger children. I urge you not to shy away from showing your younger children this film. These sections contain things that children should be upset by and think about. Unlike most Disney films ‘Holes’ is not afraid to deal with racism, hatred, violence and the cruelty of both adults and children; but this makes that film’s resolution even more joyous. The message that though greed destroys, compassion and love redeem is so much stronger when we have had to come through real darkness in order to reach the light.

To label ‘Holes’ as a children’s film is to discount the most original and enjoyable family film since ‘The Princess Bride’. Yes it is a film that you can enjoy with your entire family but that doesn’t take anything away from Davis’ achievement. This is pure cinematic joy and I hope one day to watch it with my children.
 

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