Buried

Why do so many young men and women risk their lives to continue the “war effort” and “reconstruction effort” in Iraq? And just how much do the people who sent them there care whether they live or die? These seem to be the questions being asked by writer Chris Sparling and director Rodrigo Cortés in claustrophobic thriller, Buried (2010).

Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) is a thirty-four-year-old all-American guy. Working “just a job” as a truck driver for an American company based in Iraq, Paul, like so many others, is only there “for money”; no political agenda in sight. But irregardless of the motivations of the individual, the government, and their companies and corporations, are there for political reasons and as such the soldiers and workers who go to Iraq are often implicated in life-threatening conflict.

The film opens with a black screen and the faint sound of wheezing; a man desperate for air. The tension is palpable as the breathing slowly intensifies until a Zippo lighter is finally lit. Surveying his surroundings in as close to “real-time” as a film that uses multiple camera angles and editing (necessarily creating temporal ellipses, albeit fractional) can, Conroy discovers he is trapped inside an old-style, simplistic wooden coffin, gagged and bound, presumably buried somewhere underground. Following a small anxiety attack Conroy passes out and the screen returns to black. Awoken by a vibrating cell phone, Conroy comes to realise that all hope is not lost and there might just be a way out after all… Calling his loved ones, his employer, US emergency services and the FBI, Conroy is as resourceful as he can be – even if his own hysteria does him a great disservice when he far from calmly tries to communicate to countless unwitting others the true gravity of his situation. Slowly recalling the events which preceded his current surroundings, Conroy deduces he has been kidnapped by insurgents or terrorists, who, unfortunately for him, want “money” in exchange for his life.

Portraying the US government and a whole host of corporations as a large faceless (they are only ever voices heard via Paul’s cell) matrix of bureaucratic red tape who share in common little to no concern for one individual’s mere humanity amidst the air-conditioned confines of their own “just jobs” – which they too presumably do solely for the constantly mentioned motivator of “money”. So ludicrous is their emphasis on logistics and protocol that they continue to ask the type of questions someone who is buried alive (time-sensitive) shouldn’t really be expected to answer; best of all when they respond – notably always free from emotion or empathy – with company lines such as “Sir, I understand your frustration”.

The key to the film comes when Paul first begins to accept the likely inevitably that he is going to die in this wooden box, somewhere in Iraq, alone. Talking to someone from a “Hostage Working Group” Paul confesses, “I just wanna do right by my family. I didn’t know it was going to be like this out here.” to which the response comes “None of us did.” Despite the inference of the slogan “War on Terror”, it seems the reality of the situation was absolutely unanticipated by so many naive young men and women who shipped out – soldiers and workers – only by the time they’ve understood it is of course too late. Conroy is left with nothing but the will to live which is stretched to its very limits by the constant demands of his kidnapper and the lack of support from the people to whom he turned for help.

On the other side of it, the kidnapper (presumably Iraqi insurgent) is also faceless and motivated by “money”. The only difference is that in place of Westernised bureaucracy, he (standing in for “they”), is deliberately cruel and even when Conroy takes instruction and acts against his own (and his government’s) will, he is still punished. The most interesting provocation Cortés highlights here is the Western world’s understanding of the word “terrorist”, as our faceless, nameless (it is worth mentioning that he is the only nameless character in the film) insurgent asks, “Because you are terrified, I am a terrorist?” It is even alluded to that anyone put in the situation of the Iraqi people; hungry – starving, poor and desperate, would probably do the same. Conroy denies this and claims he would never kill anOther even in such a situation but the ethical questioning, despite his answer, remains.

Incredibly well shot, carefully lit and superbly acted, Buried is communicably claustrophobic and palpably tense. The run-time is possibly a little longer than is needed to successfully explicate the film’s central moral project and there are occasional “dramatic events” that the film could even do without as they disrupt the otherwise well-sustained and bleak tone of it all. But these points notwithstanding the film is decent enough and will no doubt play on your mind for some time after the house lights come up and you hurry out for air.

Buried opens in Australian cinemas today – Thursday October 7 2010 - and is distributed through Icon.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

The Girl Who Played With Fire

The late Stieg Larsson’s 2005 Millennium trilogy; The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest; are the latest commercial success in popular crime fiction turned popular film trilogy. Criticised for a flat “TV” aesthetic and, certainly for some viewers, a graphic depiction of violence against women, the film adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo split opinions largely due to its perceived quality and depth. Second in the trilogy, The Girl Who Played With Fire, is, as a crime thriller in the first instance, perhaps less successful than its predecessor, the tension and indeed the stakes never quite reaching the critical heights of Dragon Tattoo. However, Played With Fire is, in my humble opinion at least , an absolutely engaging and thoughtful film, beyond the passive “entertainment” confines of its generic categorization as dramatic-thriller. The film builds on the ideas already present in Dragon Tattoo and together they offer a combined contemplation of historical resonance and a subsequent critique of contemporary state systems, both of which I found compelling.

Following on from the trauma of the first film, which was largely informed by the persistent horrors of the Holocaust, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi  Rapace) is shown in new, plush surroundings, stripped bare of personal effects. Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) has returned to investigative journalism with a new protégé, and a story that will expose a number of influential men and their exploitative actions against countless women who have been consistently failed by the country’s social welfare system. When three murders, linked to Blomkvist’s exposé and to Lisbeth, take place, she is assumed by the authorities to be the responsible party and as such, goes into a form of hiding. Blomkvist, sure of her innocence, embarks upon yet another highly dangerous search for the truth. Moving on to reveal links with Soviet foreign intelligence agency, the GRU, Played With Fire builds on the historical resonance created in Dragon Tattoo suggesting that the contemporary failures of the state (concerning welfare in this instance) are intrinsically linked to the problems of a complex and damaging history at unrest.

Perhaps the most interesting and provocative contemplation the film throws up lies in a Deleuzian reading of its spatial and temporal motivations. According to Deleuze, cinema was, pre-WWII, spatially motived by what he terms “the movement image”, that is to say that physical movement onscreen motivated the forward trajectory of the film through; 1) perception images (what is seen), 2) affection images (what is felt) and 3) action images (onscreen action). With WWII as the single event that created a “rupture” or “shift”, post-WWII film became, according to Deleuze, motivated by temporal advancement: “the time image”. In addition to the spectacular car chase that takes place (an obvious manifestation of the movement image) there is a scene in which Blomkvist, talking to a “source”, wanders around a garden; the image  strangely motivated by his slow physical action rather than the “race-against-time” of its thriller narrative. That the nature of their discussion harks back to the complex history pre-dating the time image subtly suggests that the ability to move in a forward trajectory following such traumatic historic events is itself fractured. In this way the film is suggesting that these still living histories create a contemporary rupture or shift of their own whereby resolution can only be achieved through a combined space/time motivator. That our two protagonists Lisbeth and Blomkvist are separated for the majority of their time onscreen; that Lisbeth must constantly move so as not to be caught by the authorities and that Blomkvist must constantly travel sometimes great distances to follow-up on a lead (this was also the case in Dragon Tattoo) further support the idea that movement is at least equal in motivation to its temporal counterpart. This is not to suggest that time is of any lesser importance within the film(s); both films in fact reveal their key crimes to have been taking place for decades gone by yet the sense of urgency, the generic “race-against-time”,  is always present.

But Lisbeth and Blomkvist face obstacles of literal and figurative enormity in Played With Fire, namely, a sort of uber-Aryan who suffers congenital analgesia (insensitivity to pain) and as such is virtually invincible; impervious to the pain inflicted upon him by other “feeling” human beings. His role is symbolic as he stands in for a physical reminder for the past. The type of “numbness”  he experiences situates him appositely as a physical incarnation for the shameful act of denying or forgetting the scars such an horrific history has left in its wake. Whilst much of the world has come to concern itself with contemporary issues, here the resonance of history indestructibly persists.

Although much of the historically significant content in the film evokes theoretical contemplation; failure of social systems as a result of a damaged state motivated by an Althusserian model of ideological and repressive state apparatuses; the final chapter, and thus any true conclusions to its provocations, is yet to come. In the hope that the final chapter, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest, will fully elucidate these ideas, The Girl Who Played With Fire offers a fine and fascinating pit stop for now. Certainly deserving of greater appreciation than just being labeled a decent dramatic-thriller with a TV aesthetic, Played With Fire is highly engaging, and often intelligent, fare.

The Girl Who Played With Fire is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday September 23 through Rialto Entertainment.
Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Uninhabited

Said to be inspired by “actual events”, Bill Bennett’s latest, Uninhabited (2010) had its very first public screening, complete with director and cast Q&A, on Saturday night at Melbourne’s Forum. Set and shot on one of many small secluded islands off Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Uninhabited saw a twenty-five strong cast and crew set up with limited access to electricity and little resources to film an old fashioned ghost-story, hinged upon an idea laid dormant in Bill Bennett’s psyche for years.

Young couple Beth (Geraldine Hakewill) and Harry (Henry James) decide to take a ten-day break where they can truly relax, and where better for a romantic love-in than a remote island sans communicado? At first their holiday is great but as the night’s close in it becomes increasingly clear that they are not on the island alone. The discovery of an eerily hidden hut that colonial history left behind and its in tact visitor book filled with entries motivated solely by fear, the couple find themselves up against a relentlessly vengeful spirit determined not to let them get off the island alive.

Visually stunning and a thematically thoughtful dramatic-thriller, Uninhabited displays and confirms many of Bennett’s filmmaking talents. It is however disappointingly let down by a weak script and some not so hot acting from its leads. An interesting development in Bennett’s oeuvre and one for his fans to catch, Uninhabited ultimately plateaus at average.

Uninhabited screens as part of this year’s MIFF and is screening again as part of the Late Night at Nova Program 2 on Saturday July 31 2010, 11pm