Buried (2010) - Claustrophobia in the form of a Movie

             

         Imagine waking up in a buried coffin with your legs, hands, and mouth tied up. No matter how much you struggle or how hard you scream there is no one around to hear you. Paul Conroy is an innocent American truck driver working for a company by the name of CRT in Iraq; he wakes up in darkness to find himself buried somewhere in the vast Iraqi desert. His only source of light is a zippo lighter and two green glowing sticks, but the only item inside the coffin that gives him the chance of getting out of this nightmarish reality is a cell phone provided by the Iraqis who put him there. When he receives a call from his kidnappers, Conroy discovers that the man calling is not terrorist, but a desperate criminal who wants "five million money." If Paul is unable to arrange five million dollars in the next two hours, he will be left to die in the coffin. 

             Buried is an original screenplay written by American screenwriter Chris Sparling. The idea of a man trapped in a coffin is so simple yet it has never before executed on a scale like this before ever before. What sets Buried apart from anything else in its genre, such as Caste Away and 127 Hours, is that the entire movie was shot in one location — a coffin. Every single frame of every single shot is inside the coffin. 

            Ryan Reynolds, who plays Paul Conroy, is perfectly believable as a man in dire to need to get out of that claustrophobic coffin.  From the opening scene of the movie, you immediately feel for Reynold's character. He is able to use his experience from past work in romantic comedies, such as The Proposal, to deliver some dark jokes in the middle of this tension building thriller. His sarcasm is the only relief the audience gets, but Reynolds is able to bring out the best from it. As he goes through inferno, Reynolds makes the audience want for him to get rescued as quickly as possible. Ryan Reynolds deserves a lot of credit for taking on this role especially because staying in a coffin for over 90 minutes is not an easy task to do.One of the reasons for this is Ryan Renold's phenomenal acting portrayal of Paul Conroy. It is also fair to credit the director, Rodrigo Cortes, and his decision to only show Paul Conroy. Throughout the movie, there are no flashback; the only character properly seen in the movie is Paul Conroy. This decision emphasizes the importance of voice acting and at the same time allows the audience to focus on Conroy's situation by juxtaposing the visual and oramediums of storytelling.   

      

    Although Buried is mainly a quiet film when it comes to music, but music still plays a major role in building tension. Whenever tension is being built up, the dramatic music can be heard very quickly which further makes the scene feel more important. During dramatic moments in the film, there is quick zoom (almost like a jump cut) that puts the audience right in Conroy's face in order to get into the character's head. With zoom, the music gets louder and louder until it burst and there is silence again. The director uses this technique to stress the importance of that scene. Although this technique is repeated a few times in the film, it still works. 

         With a budget of 3 million dollars, the director with his cinematographer, Eduard Grau, do their best to get what they can out of the limitations they had to work with. The cinematographer is able to get some creative and dynamic lighting with the resources Conroy finds in the coffin. The lights include: a zippo lighter, a cell phone, a flashlight, and two glowing sticks. Obviously those were not the only lights used in every shot, but every light used gave the illusion of light coming from those four different sources. In an interview, the director said that  "when we shot with the Zippo, 70% of the time it was just the real zippo and nothing else. And you can’t improve upon the magic of a dancing flame that you cant completely control." Unlike most movies, the darkness was pure pitch black darkness, which helps keep the movie realistic. When there is darkness, it feels there is no way out, just like Reynold's character. 

      The movie is about 90 minutes long and at times, it could feel slow, especially in the beginning. It feels like everything is being repeated and over again to make sure the audience understands the situation, which honestly was not necessary. Despite that little hiccup, the movie seems to have no other problems that seemed to bother me. Although the story place in one coffin, there were actually seven coffins made for the cinematographer to get the shots he wanted and also for the artistic visuals. For example in one shot, when all hope seems lost, the camera moves up into dark space where the coffin seems never-ending. The director does this to make the audience feel like there is very little that could be done for Paul anymore. It is because of the decisions made by the director that makes the audience step into Paul Conroy's shoes and feel claustrophobic throughout the film and feel sick by looking at Reynold's character struggle, but still not being able to look away because of all the tension that is being built up. Buried is a thriller and a more unique one than I have ever before.