Everyone is talking about ”Buried”, an insanely gripping drama about a contractor (Ryan Reynolds) who ends up buried alive in Iraq. With just a lighter and mobile phone for company, Reynolds spends 90 minutes on screen desperately trying to escape the death trap. While it might not sound like much on paper, watching it is a very different experience. Relentlessly intense, edge of your seat, heart attack inducing, are just a few things to describe this little gem of a thriller. Reynolds, is fantastic, and gives the performance of his life. The films director, 37-year-old Spaniard Rodrigo Cortes, who made his directorial debut back in 2007 with The Contestant, was at the recent Toronto International Film Festial talking up a storm about his new movie. Gaynor Flynn sat down with him.
How difficult it was it to get this script off the ground?
Nobody wanted to produce it because they thought it wasn’t shootable basically. But I always perceived this as a very big film and the reason I felt so attracted to this was because it was impossible to make. So that’s a perfect reason to try to do that. I always saw it as a very big film. As a Hitchcock film. Actually in the beginning I received some, lets say, kind suggestions, to cut out some things, to show the other characters and I thought that was a perfect way of spoiling everything. In that case you would make the film smaller, less tense. It would be more like a TV episode and I sometimes I think limitations are hidden blessings.
How difficult was it for you to make this concept work?
Well the concept worked from the very first moment in the script. So I simply trusted my reactions when I read it. I decided not to use logic afterwards because if you think too much you’re going to find out very fast that it’s impossible to make the film. I wanted to find that out when it was too late to turn back. And the first thing I did was not to think about the locations at all. Just the emotions you want the audience to feel and the tools I needed so they could feel those emotions. So if I needed a 360 degree dolly shot so I could mesmerize the audience while they were hearing the dialogue then I renounced it just because it was impossible to do it in box. Or if I wanted a very violent hand held camera shot so I could give some violent energy to a certain sequence again I had to renounce that because its impossible to shoot hand held inside a box. But then I found ways to do that inside a box and I used the same tools I would use in any other high tension thriller that happened in New York City or in the middle of the jungle. Focus on the story and find a way. We built seven different coffins for seven different technical needs so we could achieve the impossible shots we needed.
Is the last sequence shot in a closed box?
All of them were shot in a closed box. What you do is take out one of the walls so you can place the camera there. So Ryan (Reynolds) was always stuck because the wall that was missing was covered by the two cameras so he lived the restrictions you’re seeing his character living. So he was totally inside the box and he couldn’t move and what you see at the end of the film where he’s almost covered and his face is against the top of the coffin. That’s exactly what he was like. He had to trust me and for logistic reasons he had no time to go out between set ups and we would have had to replace the sand, so he had to stay there all the time. So it was really, really tough on him.
What made you choose Ryan Reynolds for this role?
He wasn’t my first option. He was the option. I saw The Nines three years ago. An amazing film full of intelligence that nobody has seen because it had terrible distribution. In that I saw an amazing actor, somebody who can do comedic as well as deep emotions with very small things. That’s a gift for a director. Many times its not about the way an actor cries or the way an actor yells, but the way he listens. The way he is when he’s still because that’s truth happening. And with him he never acts, he just is. He’s very organic. You cannot catch him lying. At the same time he has a perfect sense of timing. Something that I have never seen and when you are going to do a movie with just three elements you need perfect control because every detail counts and he has that and especially with rhythm. He’s like a musician. I’m an editor myself and I’m very aware of the technical needs of pace and rhythm. He’s Mozart. So you have a musician inside a box.
Was it hard to get him?
I mean I wanted him but he didn’t want me. He read the script and he loved it but he said this isn’t shootable please look for another actor. Good luck. Actually I don’t think he even said good luck. Then he wanted to see my first feature The Contestant, which I sent him. There was something he saw there. But there was no subtitles so probably he didn’t understand it and he thought it was better than it was. He said okay I want to know more so I sent him a fifteen page directors statement detailing how I wanted to achieve this so called impossible film. Two weeks later we were meeting in LA and forty minutes later we were shaking hands. I don’t know what happened. I give the credit to my poor English. There must have been something he didn’t understand and when he understood it, it was too late.
Why did you choose to make this movie now?
Because it was the opportunity to do something literally that’s never been done and because my body reacted so strongly to it. It’s not something you can always explain. But it felt like when I was a teenager and I read the interview between Truffaut and Hitchcock and you read about Rope and you read about the technical challenges and you said okay I would love to do something like this but everything is done. Then you find the possibility of doing one of those things your read about when you were a teenager so that’s probably why I felt such a strong reaction, here I could do one of those things that have never been done.
Who do you admire?
For some reason I’ve always been attracted to what I call editor directors. Those who have a total control of narrative like in silent cinema Buster Keaton, Hitchcock of course, Orson Welles especially if you see F for Fake or The Magnificent Ambersons. Its like Goodfellas and now that I mention Goodfellas, Scorsese of course my favourite alive director. I learned from him because he did more cinema than others. It’s hard to explain but it was more filmmaking than others. It was something that could happen only in a screen. It was pure cinematic energy and of course when I was a kid I saw the films of Spielberg, Joe Dante but when I discovered Scorsese it hit me so strongly.
Did you have any film references at all?
Well some people say well Phone Booth was shot inside a box but its not shot inside a booth. The character is inside a booth but the camera is out of it and there are many other actors. You have the crowd you have the hookers, the policemen, you have the shooter, the TV news guys. You have a lot of things so you feel so alone because you have no references. The lense is always three inches from him and you cannot cut to the other actor because there is no other actor. If there is some change of position and you cannot cover it well then you cannot cover your arse because you cannot show his point of view so you have to invent everything from zero.
It will be hard to top this in terms of challenges?
Yes. You can not go further unless you do something inside a fridge.
You mentioned his point of view. Can you enlarge on that a bit?
Well here you have pitch black. You only see what he sees. You experience what he experiences that’s why the rule was never leave the box because everybody has to be buried alive for an hour and a half. My goal is that everybody leaves the theatre four pounds lighter.
How long was the shoot?
We shot it in 17 days. That was a nightmare. It was agony. Instead of the normal 8 to ten shots a day we had to do 30 to 32 shots a day. Every day. You don’t have time to improvise. Actually you have to shoot with a brain of an editor because you don’t have time to shoot everything from every possible angle. It was pretty intense but the blood was Ryan’s.
Were you trying to make a political statement with this film?
Well if I use Hitchcockian terms I find Iraq to be the McGuffin in the film. It’s the background of the story but it’s not about that. It’s not that it’s a high tension thriller and its very right and it’s a physical journey. Its also that these small premise stories have a very powerful metaphorical and allegoric level that transcends the political one. This to me has more to do with a Richard Matheson story. I don’t know if you have read Duel, Shrinking Man or I Am Legend? They are very small premise stories but they resound inside you. They talk about human beings and their society. In my opinion its more about bureaucracy than about Iraq. About how impersonal everything is. About how difficult it is to get help. This allegoric level is much more difficult.
