Claustrophobia at its Best

Buried (2010) 9/10

“It's really dark, really cramped in here, my Zippo® keeps getting too hot for me to hold, and this stupid Blackberry® has TERRIBLE battery life!”

WOW. Just wow. I am absolutely floored by “Buried.” In fact, I have no doubt that it just shot into the spot of my number one favorite movie of 2010 by far... and will probably stay there (with 127 Hours being the only movie that could come close to knocking it out—ugh! I still have yet to see that!). Ryan Reynolds (“The Proposal,” “Smokin' Aces,” “Definitely Maybe”) is an almost solo act in this piece about Paul Conroy, a truck driver sent to Iraq to deliver building materials. Their convoy is attacked and he is buried alive inside a western-style wooden coffin. We must glean this from the many phone calls Conroy makes, however, because aside from a video on his cell phone, the camera never leaves his 2-by-6-foot cell. The only other appearances come in the form of the voices of several phone correspondents and one video of a woman (Ivana Miño: “Guadalupe,” “Reflections,” “El Criminal”) being held hostage by the same group that encapsulated Conroy.

This great film was directed by Rodrigo Cortes, who, amazingly enough, is a virtually unknown Spanish director/writer/producer. Aside from “The Contestant,” he has never directed a full-length film. The concept for this movie (by American screenwriter Chris Sparling) is fantastic, and interestingly enough it was released in the same year as “127 Hours,” starring James Franco (“Eat Pray Love,” “Spider Man 3,” “Tristan and Isolde”), which is based on roughly the same concept. Man is trapped, man has camera/phone, man films himself, and man goes through stages of death one by one. The only thing I see bumping “127 Hours” above this film is the fact that it is based on a true story, whereas “Buried” is not. Which is why I am DYING to see it, because I am curious to see who is the better solo show, Ryan Reynolds or James Franco.

Before I go on, however, I would like to point out that ”Buried” does have some flaws. I think this is mainly due to the fact that the director probably has never been buried alive—or probably even spoken heard from someone who has. The problem is that Reynolds' character does not do some things you would expect a person to do in his situation. I won’t spoil it for you, but after watching the movie the few minor things did not detract from it one iota. I did not even think about them until I read some blogs and IMDB’s discussion of the inconsistencies.

The score was also very well done. It added the right feel to the movie. The music sounded cramped and cut short, which is exactly the feel the movie was trying to portray. (I mean, come on, he is buried in a freaking coffin underground, of course you should feel claustrophobic...)

The cinematography was kind of funny, because I knew there was no way this director was going to shoot exclusively in this coffin with Ryan Reynolds. There are not too many angles you can shoot from when you only have space in between Reynolds’ legs or over one of his shoulders. However, during the whole 90 minutes of “Buried,” I never once thought the little tricks he did with the camera—including the long shots stretching out of the coffin—were strange. They added to the mind-bendity (I'm makin' it a word for the time being), and the hopelessness of it all. If I were ever to ask myself, “Gosh, what is a movie that really portrays hopelessness in cinematography?”, this movie will probably be high on the list. I don’t ever get claustrophobic just from watching something cramped. (In fact, aside from the lingering effects on my stomach from just a picture of a great height, and my inability to stand the sound of a plastic spoon scraping against Styrofoam, I don't really have any irrational fears.) But I genuinely felt like I was there in that coffin. I do not know if it was because of the darkness of my fairly small room or what, but I really started to feel claustrophobic and uncomfortable in a few parts, and I LOVED that. I mean, not to get melodramatic, but this movie made me feel things I have never felt before! If that isn't worth a 9/10 rating, I don't know what is.

I highly recommend “Buried” to anyone who wants to see a director and an actor pull off an incredibly difficult concept with such ease that it’s almost laughable. “Buried” is a masterpiece. I definitely expect more from Cortes in the near future, because this man knows how to direct. And one more thing: Let’s see if Reynolds’ performance in this movie will shift his archetype character into something a little less chick-flicky.