What is Cloverfield?
This past Friday I saw Cloverfield with a couple of friends, one of whom will post his own impressions of the movie as well I imagine. In advance, I apologize for the rambling format this mini-review will inevitably take, as I’m still trying to digest everything.
So how do I put this? In a word, the movie was intense. Both visually and aurally. I want to bring special attention to the sound. Save for the initial stereo music at the party, there is no background music during the entire film. This makes perfect sense if you consider exactly what kind of movie Cloverfield is. During the run-up to the release there had been a lot of guessing and hype about “the monster”.
Listen to me; Cloverfield is not about the monster.
Well, in a way it is, but more so it is a movie about us. It’s a movie about regular people in a stressful situation and how they deal with it. This is why the lack of music, as well as the somewhat controversial shaky-cam work so well. We are placed right in the middle of these people; we see what they see and we hear what they hear. If I don’t see (at the very least) Oscar nominations for director Matt Reeves and producer J.J. Abrams, I will be very disappointed.
I say somewhat controversial because there have been comparisons — based purely on the trailers — between this film and The Blair Witch Project. Let me tell you now that this is pretty much bullshit. The only real similarity between the two films is that they are both told from the point of view of a recovered videotape/SD card.
Where Cloverfield excels is that we actually care about the characters. To be sure, we are introduced to them as the rich, privileged and beautiful yuppies that they are. For the first 20 minutes all we can do is watch them go through their hipster heart ache routines, but we’re not really meant to connect with them.
Once the monster hits though, we are with them as their world quickly unravels (as would ours in such a situation) and falls apart around them. People die, things that were once important become meaningless, and we see just how like us these people are.
There’s a lot more that I want to say about this movie, but as I said I am still trying to digest it all. I want to see it again and if you haven’t seen it yet, I highly suggest you take the first opportunity. Don’t wait for the DVD or the .torrent - this is a film that has to be seen on the big screen.
I am not exaggerating when I say this movie will be a modern classic in the same way that Jaws and Star Wars were for their times.
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