Buried (Blu-ray) (2010)

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Featurette-Making Of-Unearthing Buried (17.26) Interviews-Crew-Director Rodrigo Cortes (14.35) Theatrical Trailer-(1.10)
Rating
Year Of Production	2010
Running Time	95:17
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Rodrigo Cortés
Studio Distributor	Icon Entertainment	Starring	Ryan Reynolds José Luis García Pérez Robert Paterson Stephen Tobolowsky Samantha Mathis Ivana Miño Warner Loughlin Erik Palladino
Case	Standard Blu-ray
RPI	$49.95	Music	Víctor Reyes

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 English Dolby Digital 2.0 (256Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Those viewers with a susceptibility to claustrophobia are well warned to steer clear of Buried. Come to think of it, however, by the time the final credits roll on this taut thriller even the most level-headed and courageous viewer is going to feel a little twisted.

     Buried is a film by Spanish director Rodrigo Cortes. What starts out as a gimmick, the whole film being set in a coffin, steadily becomes a grim and thrilling exercise in filmmaking. After a well produced title sequence the film proper begins in darkness. Total darkness. We can hear some shuffling and noises but otherwise there is silence. With a flick of a Zippo lighter the truth becomes horrifyingly apparent. Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) is buried alive! It takes him, and us, some time to gather our bearings. Once he does he realises that he is trapped in a coffin with only his lighter as company. Steadily though, other items come to hand. A blackberry buzzes with a missed call. His hip flask provides some solace. Cortes teases out the story as Conroy begins to take stock of his situation. He is a truck driver in Iraq. His convoy came under heavy fire and other drivers in the convoy were shot. Why has he been left alive? Why has he been buried and who put the phone in his pocket? All becomes apparent when he receives a call from his "kidnapper" who demands a ransom of $5 million otherwise he will simply leave him in the ground to die a slow death. Conroy makes a bundle of calls trying to find loved ones and miserably failing to engage the support of his government. Eventually he is put through to a hostage liaison officer who has considerable experience dealing with captured Americans in the Gulf. As the hostage takers become more brutal and demanding, his employer more cold and calculating, and the light and cellphone begin to lose their power, there is only one question remaining-will he make it out alive?

     Buried is a thriller in the tradition of Rope by Alfred Hitchcock and Joel Schumacher's Phone Booth. Whereas Hitchcock and Schumacher had large sets to work with and a series of actors, in Buried we have only Ryan Reynolds and a series of voices at the end of a cellphone. He turns in a tremendous performance that is genuine to the core. It is interesting to read the IMDb message boards which are full of "helpful hints" and castigatory remarks about Conroy’s reaction to his situation. For those viewers expecting the coffin to transform into a phone box and Conroy into Superman this is not the film for you. This is a realistic reflection of war-torn Iraq where the buried coffin stands as a metaphor for the hopeless situation the Allied powers have found themselves in after years of fighting. Paul Conroy realizes, to his horror, that in the eyes of the locals he is just as much an unwanted visitor as the soldiers.

     Buried is not a film for everyone. Even to those who are not claustrophobic the experience of watching an injured, desperate man fight for his life in a confined space for an hour and a half can be quite nerve wracking and depressing.

Video

     Regular visitors to this site will have noticed the recent debate regarding Buried and its original aspect ratio. The film was shot using 35mm and was shown in cinemas at a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Director Rodrigo Cortes apparently chose this aspect ratio because it was shaped like a coffin and therefore accentuated the confinement of the lead character. Cinematographer Eduard Grau ( A Single Man) shot it with care and precision.

     This Blu-ray is not in the correct aspect ratio. It is in 1.77:1, close to a standard widescreen. Distributor Icon Entertainment responded to a recent reader query confirming that the film was transferred to DVD and Blu-ray at a 1.78:1 aspect ratio for the simple reason that the digital master available in the UK was in that ratio. There are no plans to re-release the film in Region B in the future at the correct aspect ratio. Site policy dictates that the transfer receives a single point deduction for the incorrect aspect ratio. For some consumers this will be sufficient to put them off the purchase and lead them to seek out the Region A version which is in the correct aspect ratio. To others it may be but a mild disappointment.

     Not having a Region A Blu-ray to compare it to makes it difficult to assess how great the impact of the different aspect ratio is on the director's vision. What can be said is that the visual experience overall is impressive. Is there any upside to the cropped transfer? One unintended consequence of the absence of the black bars for the 2.35:1 transfer was that Ryan Reynolds was scrabbling at the edge of my display to get out! However, no film in 2011 should be presented on home video in a format out of keeping with the original aspect ratio.

     As far as Blu-ray quality itself this is a fine looking film with obvious limitations. There is very little environmental colour on show and the level of detail is often diminished by the often faint lighting conditions. Grau has used a number of different colours of light - glow sticks, red and plain torchlight, cell phone blue and flame tinged to provided visual variety. Those moments where the camera stays on Reynolds’ face, particularly his stubble, show an amazing level of clarity and detail. The film has a textured grain like look to it which was no doubt achieved in postproduction. This is an aesthetic choice which suits the gritty subject matter.

     There are subtitles in English for the hard of hearing.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     Buried comes to Blu-ray with an impressive DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 track. There is also, for some reason, a Dolby Digital 2.0 track running at 256 KB/S.

     Sound, and the absence of sound, are important features of this film. The shuffling in the darkness looking for a light helped ramp up the tension to sometimes unbearable levels. The dialogue during the telephone conversations is all cleanly rendered. Music is used rarely but to good effect. The score is firmly in the tense thriller vein. The surrounds are well used creating a "front of coffin", "back of coffin" effect. Each noise is well directioned. The sub-woofer engages on a few occasions with good effect when thumps of bombs are heard from overhead.

     One complaint, however, is that the bass used in the opening credit sequence and at another time in the film was so up in the mix that it made my room shake at average volume. Whilst I am not one to complain about Earth shaking sound (that is the neighbour’s role!) having this effect whilst nothing is going on is distracting.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

     There are a small number of extras on this Blu-ray.

Unearthing Buried (17.26)

     This is a fairly lengthy and reasonably informative Making of featurette. All the key players are interviewed including the production designer and original scriptwriter. Director Rodrigo Cortes takes us through the production process and we are forced to relive the agonising 17 day shoot. As well as the lead actor we get to meet the seven coffins, each with their own name, which were used to create all the shots in the film. Also of interest is how they used an actor in a booth to do all the radio voices so Reynolds would have something to react to when doing his phone calls. The experience of making the film in close confines over a short period seems like it was a gruelling experience.

Interview with Rodrigo Cortes (14.35)

     This is a fairly lengthy interview which covers a good deal of ground. The usual questions are asked and the heavily accented Cortes responds with intelligent and funny answers. Interestingly, he, and perhaps he alone, equates the film as having the structure of a comedy! Referring to Martin Scorsese's After Hours and Billy Wilder's The Apartment he notes that, in the comedy structure, bad things continue to happen to the main character.

Theatrical Trailer (1.10)

    The theatrical trailer is short but to the point.

    The Region A version of the film is in the correct asect ratio. It misses the Interview extra however most viewers would gladly swap that for a correctly framed transfer.

     Buried is a tense and relentlessly downbeat experience. We are taken into the box with its horrifying confinement and kept there until the finale.

     The Blu-ray is a high quality experience but, and this is a very big but, it is cropped. The extras are short but interesting. I rate it 3.5 stars because the film, even in the cropped state, is a great experience.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall