Rodrigo Cortès
Buried - Sepolto

Reading various reviews (all mechanically positive) of "Buried" around the web, I've often noticed the phrase "Forget Tarantino!" and why? I don't forget a damn thing! In fact... let's start right here! Take the scene from "Kill Bill. Vol 2", Uma Thurman is buried alive by Michael Madsen. Darkness... background noises, panting breath... anguish and a sense of enclosure perceived through the blackness of the screen, then the flashlight turns on, the face of the protagonist illuminated... in the background a coffin! Desperate screams, cries, suffocating claustrophobia... 6 minutes of anguish culminating in Tarantino's usual comic book style.

Well... in the case of "Buried," take away half of the cartoonish irony... and extend the scene for 95 minutes! There isn't a single external shot! An hour and a half in a coffin! This element splits the bar of merits and flaws in half. It must be admitted that it's not easy to invent always different scenic solutions within such a confined space. The director manages to incorporate all the technical elements of cinema into a coffin. Tracking shots, zooms, absurd long takes, shots from every angle... well... no complaints here! A well accomplished work (thanks also to the use of different coffins which allowed the director to position the camera at various angles).

There has been much shouting about the originality of the screenplay, especially regarding the ending, acclaimed as a masterpiece... yet it turns out to be almost identical to an idea already exploited in an episode of "CSI: Grave Danger" (again by Tarantino... again on live burial). I don't understand where all this inventiveness is at the end of Buried. Yet there are good socially tinted ideas, and they are well executed. A decent work, well-shot, well-conceived... but still far from the much-acclaimed "genius" (a word misused in every available review on the web). We should remember that cinema has already borne good fruits with this cinematic plot (let's remember the beautiful "Buried Alive" by Roger Corman, or "The Serpent and the Rainbow" by Wes Craven, and not least the beautiful dual strike by Quentin Tarantino in the aforementioned titles).

Last great mystery... the budget! It's still being called "the low-budget film that shocked the Sundance Festival." No matter how much professional technical equipment may cost, no matter how substantial the fees for the actor and stage technicians may be... you can't spend $3 million on a film set in a coffin! Sam Raimi would have done it with $50,000! (with a touch of REAL genius) and allow me to say it with irony... I would have done it with 800 euros (same shots, same editing. I don't say this for boasting... but to underline that scenic creativity in a restricted space does not necessarily need million-dollar budgets. Hearing the director speak, it seems that he has elevated himself to a champion of low budget, saying that $3 million is, cinematically speaking, equal to 10 thousand lire!

If we take the standard budgets of commercial films as a comparison, perhaps he's right... but for an independent film of this type, 3 million is a hell of a lot!). Nevertheless, nothing to take away from the directorial capabilities of Rodrigo Cortés. 37 years old... young... enterprising... and with that touch of camera work that winks at his virtual masters (Alfred Hitchcock above all. However, comparisons with the master have been, in my opinion, somewhat exaggerated). Despite being a product with valid direction, it doesn't manage to convince me 100%. An overly elaborate production that masquerades as independent creativity. I don't want to be biased but... Tarantino, the "cinephile of immense class" is another thing! "Forget Tarantino"? Those who say this have probably forgotten cinema.