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Buried
is an expertly crafted and unsettlingly claustrophobic ninety-minute
thriller with a twist – it’s set completely within the confines of a
buried coffin. Paul (Ryan Reynolds) wakes up to find he’s been buried
alive after his truck was ambushed while delivering goods to Coalition
forces in Iraq. All he has is a foreign cell phone with poor reception,
a lighter, a pencil and a flask of alcohol. What follows is Paul’s
seemingly hopeless battle to escape from his increasingly suffocating
tomb.
A buried coffin serves as the only location in this
compelling film.
Director Rodrigo Cortes sets himself
many limitations when bringing Chris Sparling’s taut script to the big
screen. He never cuts away to the surface over the course of the film,
and the only other characters apart from Paul are disembodied voices
powerless or unwilling to help. Though Cortes is adamant that his film
is not a political thriller, it’s hard to ignore the parallels between
Paul’s situation and the military situation in Iraq, as well as the US
government’s deceitful, commodity-driven actions. Buried plays on
this feeling of alienation and successfully incites strong reactions
from the audience when Paul’s desperate calls to American authorities
continuously lead him nowhere.
Cortes and Director of Photography
Eduard Grau somehow manage to present a cinematic yet extremely cramped
space. Every angle and possible camera maneuver is utilised and extreme
close-ups of Reynolds seethe with the frustration and helplessness that
both Paul and the audience are feeling. The richly textured sound design
by James Munoz fills in the blanks in situations when the image simply
cannot. It is refreshingly raw and unpolished, reflecting the
circumstances of the story and heightening the realistic tension.
Ryan Reynolds delivers an unforgettable performance as Paul Conroy.
The real revelation here is Ryan
Reynolds. We all know he could act, but he really steps up to the
challenge here – both physically and emotionally. His responses to each
development are genuinely moving, whether he’s yelling down the phone at
a clueless 911 Operator or leaving a heartfelt message for his wife and
son. Over 17 shooting days he was subjected to these difficult
conditions, performing long takes to allow for a more organic
performance. He was also required to light the scene and pay attention
to his movements and their influence on the clarity of his dialogue. All
that hard work translates commendably in the character of Paul and makes
his struggle even more harrowing.
Buried is an unnerving homage to
the Hitchcockian sensibility that seems to be lacking in contemporary
thrillers – the kind of aesthetic that doesn’t rely on Hollywood
convention to tell a story in a compelling way. Instead, Buried focuses
only on core cinematic ingredients to tell a profoundly moving story
about a man who refuses to give up despite serving an authority whose
prime concern is not the preservation of human life, but rather the
maintaining the stranglehold of power and wealth.
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