Howl is a film based on Allen Ginsberg's life and works and most notably his controversial poem Howl which contains reenacting various aspects including Ginsberg's debut reading of the poem. As well as the obscenity trial relating to its explicit content. The films jumps between the trial, the reading and Ginsberg's past experiences and his influences as well as an interview with him. The film utilises a number of techniques mostly animations which if you're not used to seeing in a surreal sense you may not enjoy. Although to be fair to the film there are probably not many other techniques that could be used to illustrate this but in my view it was done fairly well. As mentioned though the film jumps and slides between the elements of his life and the trial. It doesn't really dissect the poem in the way that it could have done. In this sense it may have perhaps been its run time which let it down. James Franco performed brilliantly and really carried the film but it will fail to set an impact because it interchanged quickly and we didn't see the external influences in the form of the people in his life as much as we could have done. In this way it feels like the James Franco show where I am not knocking him as an actor but it feels like we could have seen more people in the story more. Like I say Franco does well he doesn't ham up the performance in the way that in these films can become a threat. In summary though the films comes at the audience and tries to impress right away but doesn't make for a very challenging film but a half decent introduction to Ginsberg's work if you haven't come across it before. Personally though on a second viewing I may grow to dislike this film for its questionable pacing even for a film that is relatively short. For that reason I may not even give this film the time of day again.
