Buried is a much anticipated independent film with a fantastic hook. It is entirely set in a coffin. No flashbacks. No cut aways to people searching for the man buried alive. Nothing but coffin. A fantastic idea for a short film no doubt, but could it work as a feature? Where would the story come from? It would be easy to create tension for a little while, but would it run out of steam? Happily, Ryan Reynolds’ strong performance just about carries the film through it’s 94 minute runtime.
I kind of cheated with this film. I read the screenplay about a year ago and so knew everything that was coming. Every little challenge Paul Conroy had to overcome? Yeah, I knew exactly how he would overcome it. As I walked into the screen I began to worry, had I wasted my money seeing as I knew what was coming? Surprisingly for me, no, I still felt the pressure, the hopelessness and the hope that Conroy felt. For me that is a huge testament to both the writing and central performance from the most charismatic man in cinema, Ryan Reynolds.
We begin on black. About 3 minutes or so, with coughing and the sound of someone moving beginning about 2 minutes in. A fantastic choice, it should make you sit up and take notice, I should be listening hard, desperate for both a sign that the screen hadn’t broken and a sign that someone would appear soon, someone for me to cling onto and identify with in the darkness. Perhaps I am being pretentious here, but this brilliant directorial decision’s effect was wasted on me due to the fact that I saw the movie on an orange Wednesday and so I was ‘treated’ to a bunch of funnymen talking obnoxiously about how “that’s it.” and how “VUH SCREENZ BROARK”. One guy shouted out “cheeseburger” at one point whilst I sighed to myself and checked to see whether I brought my handgun.
Once Ryan Reynolds showed up though, they shut up. Well, they didn’t, but I was so focussed on his plight that they were removed from my mind until I looked back on my experience watching the film. Reynolds truly carries this film, with everything battling against him he manages to make it both exciting and emotional. He delivers the few jokes that litter the script with his trademark wit and charm and shines even in the emotional moments as he breaks down and delivers some of the greatest ‘pained screams’ of the year. We feel as he feels, uncomfortable, worried, tense. A brilliant performance.
Visually the film surprised me. Whilst the location removes the need or possibility for any flashy camera work the film still looks brilliant and that is due to the simplicity when lighting the box. Three colours dominate the screen, the blue light from the cellphone, orange glow from the zippo lighter and green from a set of glowsticks. The changes between these colours are brilliantly measured, as we grow tired of the orange loneliness towards the start of the film, the cellphone’s neon blue tells us that soon Conroy, and us, will soon be hearing someone else’s voice. The use of colour in a movie might not be something that many are interested in but in a film with a single location any steps towards making the screen visually arresting are worth mentioning, particularly when they work this well.
The story is of course told through varies phone calls that Conroy makes to various people, someone working at his company, his wife, rescue workers in Iraq and various other people as he tries to get into contact with the first three. These phone calls are, for the most part, entertaining. We want them to understand Conroy’s plight immediately, but they don’t, instead they put him on hold, hang up, are evasive and succeed only in making the tension rise. I complained in Winter’s Bone that the first act of the film featured the protagonist doing the same thing over and over again. The same can be said here. However in Buried everything happens at such a quick pace that we barely realise it’s the same series of events we are witnessing.
However it is this quick pace that is the films biggest downfall. There isn’t a lot that can go on in a coffin to add to the tension. And towards the end of the second act things begin to slump, reaching a low when a snake is introduced. A snake? Now I don’t subscribe to Dogma 95 and I know that snakes can go underground, but really? The snake struck me as completely daft and made me realise, for the first time in about 60 minutes that I was watching a movie. Thankfully however, the snake is soon disposed off in a slightly ridiculous manner and we can get back to the story for an absolutely brilliant final half hour which redeems the second act’s sins.
Buried is an exhausting film. An exercise in stamina for the viewer. I came out of the screen both physically and emotionally drained and despite thinking that the film was clever and witty and thematically strong (don’t be put off the Iraq setting, it’s not an anti war movie per se, but more a study of how employers exploit workers), I don’t think that I could ever watch it again. It would just be too much. This is a must see, not because it’s a FIVE STAR FILM OF THE YEAR, but because it is something different, with a central performance of incredible strength and a script that keeps the tension rising and rising throughout.
