Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation

As promised, this weekend, I attended the highly anticipated (by me, at any rate) showing of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation at the Backseat Film Festival (to illustrate exactly how highly anticipated it was, I have to digress for a few moments into a story about how when we arrived, the film schedule was backlogged by about an hour. So, at 7.05, five minutes after the film was supposed to begin, the previous showing was still up on the screen. Due to some level of inattention on the part of the event staff, all of us lining up outside were let in to a nearly-empty theatre. And no wonder. For the next excrutiating 45 minutes, we were forced to watch one of the most execrable pieces of developed film I've ever sat through--and let me remind you that for a brief while, I was a film student whose sole purpose in life was to do the same. And for someone who has walked out of more films in theatres than actually sat through them, it goes to show that I was willing to submit myself to the torture, albeit a whiny, tantrumy submission, for the privilege to say I have seen this film. The second moral of this story is to say that if you ever encounter a piece of footage called Jews at Sea, run like hell. And if you meet the guy responsible for it, stone him. A roomful of film lovers will thank you for it).

Anyways, finally. Finally! Chris Srompolis took the microphone to briefly ("Here's our film") introduce The Adaptation:

The opening screenshot:

And then on to the action. Scene opening in the jungles of Peru, shot on location in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Something I wish I'd captured was the sight of Indy being chased through the jungle by a horde of angry, diminuitive and blonde Peruvian Indians in long grass skirts. Ahhh.

Here, my favorite shot of the film--Indy is about to snatch the Peruvian idol, which cheekily has a little potatohead-y face carved into the back of it:

To compare with the scene from the original, in which the Harrison Ford Indy is about to do the same. Somehow, the little gold idol is a little less endearing without that little knife-slash mouth and angry triangular eyes:


At this point, I was so caught up in the drama of the film itself that I actually forgot to take pictures as originally planned. Every time you sat there thinking, "How are these kids going to re-enact _____", they would do it. And better than you could dream of doing it yourself. Indy being chased out of the Peruvian cave by a 12-foot boulder? Check. Flames engulfing Marion's bar in Nepal after a gunfight with Toht and his henchmen? Check. The camera-pan across a vast archaeological camp digging in Tanis? Check. Streetfight in Cairo? Check. The entire climbing-over-and-under-the-truck-as-it's-chasing-Belloq-and-fighting-Nazis sequence? Check check check.

And here, Belloq's (Eric Zala) below-lit face fills up the screen as he is about to lift up the lid to the Ark:

Also uncaptured were the lost spirits as they flew out of the Ark, melting the Toht and burning holes through the Nazis in attendance. All of this and more done without any of the CGI programs or Apple's iMovie available today.

Here, the audience sits, riveted yet, as the credits roll:

Quite seriously, the film really lived up to everything ever mythologized about it. Yes, it is a film for fans of the Indiana Jones adventures. But it's also a film for fans of film-making. And really, a film for fans of film. In the end, a 100-minute tribute film shot by a gang of 12-year olds would not stand up to audiences if it weren't good. And it wouldn't be around, packing theatres, almost 20 years after its 7 years of filming and production were complete if it weren't great.

It was great. If you are within traveling distance of any of the upcoming screenings, you have to go. It's an obligation to everything you wanted to do as a kid and were told/thought was impossible.