At the film’s beginning, Hank (Paul Dano) prepares to commit suicide on a deserted island, and suddenly a corpse is washed ashore by the waves. Interestingly, this corpse is farting every second, which disturbs Hank’s suicide. Hence Hank goes ahead and has a look. Then Hank stops killing himself, dragging the dead man named Manny by Hank, into a cave. It is so funny that Harry Porter’s actor, Daniel Radcliffe, portrays the never-stop-farted corpse so that reports tell the story bluntly: Daniel Radcliffe farts a lot in this movie.
A fascinating set in this film is that Manny is a multipurpose tool guy, just like the film’s name–swiss army man. Hank can be propelled forward by Manny, which could emit gas from the body’s bowels. This idea is so funny. The picture that Hank triumphantly mounts Manny, yanks down his pants, raises a hand and speeds across the waves are somewhat gay.
Regarding farting, I can’t forget the scene where Manny takes Hank out of the water just by farting, like a rocket takes off. Hank is desperate at one time. He never dreams the flatulent corpse can help him anymore.
Stranded on a desert island (at least for first-time viewers), Hank suffers from starvation and hydroponics, so Hank wants to abandon this useless body. The miracle occurs now, and the pale corpse can be pumped for a miraculous stream of drinkable water so that Hank can stay hydrated from the water streams from Manny’s mouth. Before long, Hank gradually figures out ingenious ways to use Manny’s body like a Swiss Army Knife, ricocheting string from the body’s gullet to scrounge up cliffs, cutting woods by body’s hand, and killing wild for meats by rocks launched by mouth. And then, Manny regains the limited ability to speak, which means Hank can talk with a dead person, to some extent reminding viewers that Hank’s experience is illusory, probably caused by the split personality or taking drugs or something else. Besides, when Manny’s penis erection, it surprisingly points to the direction of human society, which means Hank knows inside how to steer to civilization.
Overall, there are just two main characters in this movie, and one character is a dead man. Ninety-seven minutes of poop gags and masturbation talk might be boring and vulgar, but adding some reflection can be different.
Leading viewers to Hank’s imaginary world and getting outside depend on viewers’ whether find details and reasoning ability. Manny is a reflection of the personality which Hank unwilling to face. This personality knows every detail of Hank’s deficiencies. Hank is afraid farting in front of other people but Manny will. From Manny’s judgement we can cryptically tell that Hank hates himself.
"But you ran away ‘cause nobody loves you?
You’re broken and empty and dirty
and smelly and useless and old.
You’re like trash, right? "
This was as much Manny’s opinion as Hank’s own.
And this movie conveys the attitude for a living–do not care too much about others’ judgement, namely, that it is full of reasons for living.
The film’s plot twists and turns. An impressive detail is the mobile phone’s owner. In the imaginary world, we viewers are all misled by Hank thinking Manny owns the phone. Until the interview, the journalist muddles up the protagonist’s name and polices call up Hank’s father by the phone instead of Manny’s, and then I know that I am tricked by the director. Besides, who loves Sarah and Swiss Army Man drifts away at the end are also exciting and thought-provoking scenarios.
From the tidbits, we know Radcliffe has many ‘substitutes’ made exquisitely by artists. They are mannequins. The surfing scenario is challenging to make it. What viewers saw was pictured by how Paul rode on a dummy built into a surfboard with an engine. The shot of the mouth spraying water is achieved through putting a water pipe into Radcliffe’s mouth. The most impressive prop, nothing better than the electric moving rod made to show Manny’s penis can point the direction.
This film’s music is very vacant. The sound “babababa~” is rhythm.