King Kong movie analysis

King Kong

Movie analysis by Zulfi

            At the end of the movie, a character announces, ‘it wasn’t airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast’, looking at the giant fallen hero, Kong.

            Peter Jackson’s ‘King Kong’ is an out and out romance movie. It may drip with pulsing action sequences, deep, dark forests of lost world and forgotten prehistoric reptiles, cascading one after the other over gorges and valleys, but everything is underplayed by Kong’s attraction with Ann Darrow. And underplaying Jackson’s well crafted action sequences is done by only one man, Jackson himself. You may argue that half the movie is saturated with brutal set pieces of thrashing and falling, splintering and breaking, but it won’t change the fact that it is a romance movie. Why? I will come to that point in a moment.

            The movie starts with a failed actress, a bankrupt filmmaker, a struggling writer teaming up with the cast and crew of a movie boarding on the ship SS Ventura to the mysterious Skull Island. The strong and brave captain of the ship advises ill regarding the trip. He tries to steer away because of bad weather, but they reach their destination unintentionally. The girl or the heroine, Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) goes missing. She is caught by the savage natives for some ritual, as it is slowly revealed to be an offering for the beast, called Kong, a huge, beast of a gorilla, which could be four to five storeys in height and equal in his width. He rescues her from dinosaurs, which are many of the habitants of the Skull Island. Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody) is in love with Ann (and likewise from her side) and he goes out to save her. Kong takes his offering with him but he soon falls for her, the tiny human, girl, who jumps and dances. He slowly learns, she doesn’t just jump and dance at his behest. Even the king of the Jungle is put in his place, in one of the most engaging scenes of the movie. Jack Driscoll and the crew of the ship succeed against the brutal forest of the Skull Island to save Ann, despite a few casualties. When Kong tries to get his stolen treasure, he is made a prisoner and wakes up as an item showcase on the Broadway theatre. Carl Denham makes up for his lost reels on the Skull Island with the beast. Soon, he blasts his way out in search of Ann. He finds her and takes her up to the tallest tower in the city, but at the end falls to his death as he is ambushed by a dozen of artillery laden navy planes.

            I have told the whole plot in the most dispirited of fashion. It is a plain telling of a tale with no garnishing. Yet, it has some inquisitiveness owing to the bizarre setting. But the gist is something hard to put in words. The gist lies in the spirit of the movie. When the movie begins Jackson visually showcases the great depression of the 30s when the beautiful actor shows on her face, hunger more than her beauty. The passion of a filmmaker is with the inconsideration of his financiers’ profit but rather with his persistence to make a memorable masterpiece. And when the voyage over the sea starts, he engages us in the honest, innocent romance of the writer and the actress. But this is just his first act. The finale of the first act becomes tense, thrilling and chilling when the natives without words show their intentions. Language is evolved over centuries, communication is by acts. And the savages’ welcome communicates us slowly what they are offering and to whom.

            The introduction king Kong comes very late in the movie. He snatches his prize and even when Ann Darrow screams and shouts, we become aware about the size of Kong. Like an ant to us, her wailings and pleadings are out of his ear’s reach. And when he sees her, he doesn’t attack her or eat her, but rather amuses himself in watching her dance. When she sets out the personal space around her, he starts communicating with her. We see him soon fighting the monstrous dinosaurs. He is attracted to her. You may say why is he attracted to her? But I will ask how is he attracted to her? Now take the setting, he is in a deep remote forest of prehistoric times. The ones surrounding him are savages. He fights with the big beasts, but he has a feeling of tenderness in his heart for the girl. Deep down, he is a cynosure of beauty. He is struck by her moving, by her behavior and he couldn’t remove her from his thoughts. The jungle’s harsh weather doesn’t dampen his romantic heart. He impresses her by crushing the skulls of the gigantic reptiles. They are his primitive romantic skills. He becomes violent when men come to take her. He fights tooth and nail for her before he is properly sedated. Ann runs to her lover’s arms. She loves Jack so much. She knows the fascination of the beast, but she doesn’t want to exist with him. She doesn’t yet realize the romance which had gripped the gorilla’s heart.

            When he breaks out of Broadway, and the police and other security teams fail in controlling him, he gets arrested by her beauty and laps at her heal. Ann, at last, realizes what had happened in the giant primate’s heart. She thinks she had started feeling for him, but she has already been through that stage. She falls for him. She knows his love for her had transcended species and even genera. She doesn’t think twice in going with him wherever he wanted, because love is blind and she revels in that blindness. At the start, we realize that in the love between Ann and jack, Kong is the outsider, but at the end, jack realizes the truth, he becomes the outsider. All these feelings of passion, Jackson never says by words. He says in his excellent picturisation and setting of scenes. What is that scene between Ann and Kong, as the latter slides goofily on the snow, playing with his sweetheart? Can we think of that in hundred years? Maybe not. The movie is an old tale, but in retelling, Jackson had gone overboard in exemplifying himself. This is the best remake in the history of cinema. Probably there are others, but I didn’t want watch anything better. The choreography at the end when Kong goes on with his flaying hands over the navy planes is without any blemishes. Watching in the big screen as the crumbling mass of construction falls, you could be on the floors beneath. It was a very surrealistic experience. Prior to 2005, I couldn’t imagine a movie which carried such aerial action imagery.

            The concept of the movie overshadows the professionalism of Carl Denham, the deep, hurting love of Jack Driscoll, the tense and emotional relationship between the ship captain and his subordinate kid, the braving ventures of the ship’s crew against the onslaught of the jungle’s worst nightmares, our worshipping of false heroes and many other things. You could see in the twitches and neighing of Kong, and his body language, his primal call for his female. Andy Serkis was the body for Kong with even facial expressions and it was said that he worked with chimpanzees to know their body language. And looking at the final picture, we know that Kong was all a primitive primate. We should thank Serkis for providing his services. Whatever human in Kong may be seen, it is only around his Ann. Jackson’s work with LOTR at that time had propelled him as the director, who could handle VFX at his best. As much LOTR was such a benchmark for him to surpass, he did, in a way. I couldn’t downplay King Kong visually compared to the middle earth saga. This is on par if not better than his trilogy, visually I mean. In spirit, it is way over.

            We had all heard stories regarding princes going to save princesses in tallest towers from bad wizards and beasts. This is the story of a princess not wanting to get saved from the beast and wants to remain in the tallest tower with him even at the lure of a handsome prince beneath. But at the end beauty killed the beast and he couldn’t have asked for a sweeter death.