Avatar

Like the majority of the western movie-going public this Christmas I went and saw Avatar this week. My expectations of James Cameron's scripts aren't particularly high, and this was no exception – was the moral of the story that, if the Africans had really not wanted be colonised by the British, the land would have risen up to help them? Or am I reading too much into a film whose MacGuffin is "unobtainium"? – but the real reason for going was the visual aspects.

On the count, the film was terrific. Absolutely marvellous. A curious side effect – for me, at any rate – was that it forced me to reevaluate those shots we've come to accept as standard elements of film-making: the close-up, the aerial pan, the following shot at ground level, the backing away while the characters run towards the camera. The realism inspired by the 3D effect made me feel like (or at least consider the shots as though) I was there. And then I had to ask myself: why am I so close to this person? How am I flying around this campsite? Why am I on the floor staring intently at these heels?

It really made me feel like a film novice for the first time. I mean, you grow up with these sort of things and never question them, but I was reminded of the reactions the first film-going public had decades ago: fear that a real train was going to come bursting out of the screen, or that an errant arrow might strike them. The gradual process by directors of introducing the now commonly understood "language" of film, like passing shadows that signify movement (e.g. in a train) or similar. Going the other way, I imagined what future generations, in a world where all films are 3D (and perhaps contain even more sensory stimuli), make of our current techniques.

None of this went through my head particularly long at the time – I spent more time wondering how the force-feedback for the MechWarrior pilots worked so that their limbs didn't move beyond the possible range of the suit's; without a satisfying solution – but I was reminded of it when I watched my next "normal" film and a particular camera shot made me wonder: what am I doing under this table?