Voto:
I fully agree with Puniscer: however, why limit ourselves to telling only the ending? Let's take a closer look in full detail: Buried (USA, 2010) by Rodrigo Cortés; starring Ryan Reynolds, Robert Paterson, José Luis García Pérez, Stephen Tobolowsky, Samantha Mathis, Warner Loughlin, Ivana Miño, Erik Palladino, Heath Centazzo, Joe Guarneri, Anne Lockhart - Can a film be made with one actor, locked in a coffin, buried underground, with only a lighter and a cell phone for company, and make it bearable for more than 5 minutes? Yes, it can be done, and Buried is proof of that. After thrilling the Sundance Film Festival and American critics, the talented Rodrigo Cortés's film finally arrives in Italy, confirming what was said across the Ocean, namely: Ladies and gentlemen, we are facing one of the films of the year. Driven by a screenplay that can only be described as brilliant, Buried takes us into the abyss of our fears, burying us alongside an extraordinary Ryan Reynolds, who suffers with us, one meter underground, in a cramped closed space, without knowing the reasons for his situation or what to do to escape, with the seconds inexorably ticking away, robbing oxygen from him, from us, and especially from the American administration, responsible for starting one of the most senseless wars in history, in Iraq, and driven into a corner by one of the most political films of the entire season. Fascinating. Through its incredible ability to keep the viewer glued to their seat for 90 minutes, without ever giving them a break, Buried is shown to be captivating and disturbing, built on a script and direction that are impeccable 'war machines', adding tension to tension, anxieties to fears, revealing more information minute by minute. Paul is a driver who ended up in Iraq for work. He has a wife and children at home, in the States. He is not a soldier, he is unarmed, and for 9 months he has lived among Iraqi bombs just to support his family. Until he wakes up in a coffin, alive, three meters underground. In his pocket, he has a cell phone, a pencil, and a Zippo lighter. Why is he locked in that box? Who put him there? What do they want from him, and what can he do to escape alive? Questions that Paul will need to figure out quickly before the oxygen runs out, suffocating him... Alfred Hitchcock would have liked Buried. Perhaps he would have even wanted to direct it. The film by Spanish director Rodrigo Cortés clearly pays homage to the Master, through a story that terrifies, enchants, and captivates, and a continuous series of twists that make us suffer alongside Ryan Reynolds, the fantastic protagonist. Young Cortés gifts us with never banal direction, considering the technical and developmental challenges of the subject, relying on a spectral photography by the Catalan Eduard Grau, who moved from the polished colors of A Single Man to the dirty, gloomy, at times blinding and hellish, and decidedly unsettling tones of this Buried. With just a simple cell phone at his disposal, Cortés destroys the war in Iraq, its usefulness, its truths, and the US administration that, under George W. Bush, both wanted and then lost it, in terms of human lives and strategy. The "American dream" is buried three meters underground, stripped bare and shown in all its blatant cynicism, along with the industrial war lobbies that have been speculating on young Americans, soldiers and non-soldiers alike, sent to die to defend an initial lie that must be protected at all costs, even at the cost of life, in a country where there are not only 'terrorists' but above all criminals, made so by being stripped of everything, amidst bombings and false promises. Through an ending as courageous as it is shocking, Cortés concludes a practically near-perfect work (apart from a couple of avoidable slow-motions), original and incredibly successful, shot in just 17 days, costing only 3 million dollars, and capable of bouncing back immediately at every slightest sign of failure,
