Chapter 1702: What buried him alive was not quicksand, but hope.
Soon "Buried Alive" began expanded screenings.
Compared with "127 Hours", the promotion of "Buried Alive" was better, and it was also relatively more gimmicky.
The feedback reviews are pretty much the same.
Compared with "127 Hours", which goes from despair to hope to new life, "Buried Alive" seems more depressing and desperate.
However, the reviews from fans are quite good!
"One actor, one scene, this is an extreme sport in the movie. If you don't fall to death, it deserves encouragement!"
"The key is that the work of a new director is very good, right?"
"This is a low-budget movie supported by one person. The male protagonist clearly interprets the levels of emotional changes. From the initial incoherence and anger to the gradual despair, it is very heart-wrenching and aggrieved to watch; the surroundings are indifferent, just one sentence"
"I'm sorry" can shirk all responsibility. In the face of interests, ordinary people's lives are worthless; abandon the extreme environment in the film, isn't it the same around us?"
"The story takes place in the same scene from beginning to end. Ryan Reynolds is fighting alone this time. Bold creativity, weird and exquisite works, novel shooting techniques, and ironic ending make such a
Even a low-budget movie can make people tense and watch the protagonist moan alone for 90 minutes without feeling boring."
"The glow stick is out of light, the flashlight is out of power, and the lighter is out of fire. It's not a big problem. The light in the heart is finally replaced by the cold wooden board and the hot quicksand, and the fire of life disappears."
"Panic, pleading, disappointment, frustration, despair, hope, ecstasy, longing, despair, giving up - in the end I cried... I suddenly felt that hope is actually very scary, more terrifying than anything else!"
"An extremely wonderful experimental film. The whole film only contains a scene inside a coffin, one person, a mobile phone and a few sundries, but the plot of more than 90 minutes has no clues and will make your heart beat faster and hold your breath to watch it.
Finished! While making people feel the despair immersed in the scene, after a few phone calls, the "anti-terrorism" war, the various indifferent relationships between people and families, companies, and society are all vividly reflected. It is truly a masterpiece that uses small things to make big things happen."
Similarly, the rating on Popular Film Critics Online is also above eight.
Moreover, "127 Hours" and "Buried Alive" are both works by new directors from the Beijing Film Academy and are both works by Li Yiti's juniors, so they were naturally compared.
Some people prefer "127 Hours", and of course some people prefer "Buried Alive"!
A film critic who liked "Buried Alive" wrote this: "I think there are very few movies that are completed with only one scene and one actor, but "Buried Alive" tells a story of extremely ups and downs and despair in a coffin.
story.
Paul woke up from a coma and found himself trapped in a coffin of about 1 cubic meter. There was a lighter and a mobile phone next to him. If you just look at the title of the film and the tools left by the gangsters, you might think this is a coffin.
A suspense film with the theme of a secret room.
But as the plot unfolds, you will find that this is not an escape game where you find the exit based on clues.
What the male protagonist encounters is a kidnapping incident in Iraq, and the implication behind this is a zero-sum game in which someone is bound to die.
In the struggle involving multiple parties, individual struggles are in vain. Being buried alive is not only the life of the male protagonist, but also the despair he endured.
So the first question: Who was the murderer who buried Paul alive?
The answer is obvious, but when everyone pointed the finger at the kidnapper, the director arranged a defense trial to torture the accuser.
"Are you from the beautiful country?"
"Yes!"
"Then you are a soldier!"
This is a profound conversation. Paul is a beautiful Chinese, but is he a soldier?
He is a truck driver who signed a contract with the CRT company and is engaged in a job transporting supplies. He has no weapons and no malicious intentions.
But what he faced was a group of warriors who carried their nation and their faith on their backs.
In their eyes, although Paul had no weapons, his existence was an invasion, and it was this symbolic invasion that labeled him a warrior and a soldier.
Interestingly, it appears many times in the film: "Don't tell the media"!
Why?
Because no one cares about the truth, and no one can report the truth.
When Paul wanted to report his situation to the media, staff warned him: "This will only make the situation worse."
The more ironic thing was yet to come. At that time, he had already vaguely sensed that this was the government's move to cover up their inaction, but time did not allow him to bargain. He had no choice but to obey the arrangement and seek help from the hostage rescue team.
But for most of the kidnapped hostages, the existence of this group is a lie.
After getting in touch with Dan Brenner, the commander of the rescue team, Paul asked him how many people he had rescued, but the answer was not optimistic.
He asked Brenner to give an example of a successful rescue to prove that he was really rescuing.
So, he got a name: Mark White
In Paul's view, even if the number of people rescued is not large, it at least shows that the rescue team has indeed made efforts.
However, this is actually the biggest twist of the film.
At the end of the story, Paul was on the verge of extinction and the sand was burying him alive. During the call, the rescue team claimed that he would be rescued within 3 minutes.
But what Paul was waiting for was an apology. The person they rescued was actually Mark White who was buried elsewhere - the man who had been rescued long ago.
Did the rescue team actually rescue the hostages? Or did they actually conduct any rescue operations? Is their job to rescue the hostages, or to ensure that the hostages did not put their officials into a disadvantageous situation?
This is the last question Paul wants to ask, but will not have an answer to, but I think he already knows the answer.
When all the dust settles and you look back at the instigators of this "buried alive" incident, will you classify them as terrorists?
"You're scared, so I'm a terrorist?"
This was the kidnapper's rhetorical question to Paul's accusation. He did not agree that he was classified as a terrorist, and Dan Brenner of the rescue team did not think so either.
Before the war came here, they had normal jobs and normal families. Like Paul, they were ordinary people without weapons.
Later, everything changed.
They are homeless, they need to endure hunger, and they need to survive under fire.
When all order is destroyed, being a warrior with weapons becomes a reliable profession, and kidnapping is the job they need to complete.
As a result, they became a group of desperate criminals. Like the government behind Paul, they would not compromise and had no retreat.
Even if they can't get a ransom, they still want to use the video to show their existence and their dignity, which may bring them greater satisfaction.
They created fear in a series of atrocities, but who sowed the seeds of fear? And who watered these seeds?
Under these ruins, there was too much blood and tears telling the answer. Paul heard it, but it was meaningless. The sand covered all the truth and isolated many lies.
Under the camera, the director only recorded Paul's death and also buried his despair.
Paul is not the first, and I am afraid he will not be the last.
Conquest, hatred, plunder, the foundation of civilization is the peace that everyone yearns for, but its shadow is the atrocities that no one can redeem.
So, who will be responsible for this massacre, and who will end this tragedy?
The movie does not intend to give an answer, it just reminds the viewer: this is not one person's tragedy, but everyone's fear.
What's even more ironic is that everyone expressed false sympathy for his situation and did nothing except a light "I'm sorry."
No, they still did something.
When Paul mentioned telling the media about his situation, the staff became nervous and quickly gave him a phone number from Dan Brenner, the commander of the hostage rescue team.
"Hostage Rescue Team".
Just this word ignited hope in his heart.
And what exactly did this hostage rescue team do?
Brenner told Paul that they had been trying to save him for a long time, but it was difficult to track his cell phone signal.
When Paul mentioned that the kidnappers asked him to take a ransom video, Brenner's response made him vaguely understand:
They don't care about anyone at all. What does it have to do with them whether he is dead or alive?
They only care about whether their own interests are damaged.
"I know you people only care about your secrets and backdoor policies.
If I were a diplomat, or the leader of a hostage rescue team, or the leader of any unit, I would have been out long ago.
But I'm not, so I just sit here, shut my mouth and wait to die."
I still remember that when Paul was about to be rescued, he happily told his wife on the phone:
They are on their way, everything will be fine, I will come home.
What awaited him was complete despair:
"Sorry Paul I'm sorry, that's Mark White, he brought us to Mark White."
The deception from beginning to end, even at the moment of his death, continued to give him hope.
Compared with the torture of falling from the peak of hope to the valley of despair, being buried alive is nothing.
Why did Paul still harbor some illusions even though he knew Brenner was lying to him?
Paul could never make up his mind to go to death because of love.
He has a gentle mother, a lovely son, and a wife who loves him.
He doesn't want to die, he doesn't want to die.
He made a nonsensical phone call to his mother with his last tenderness: Mom, I am your little Paul.
After seeing the video of his colleague Pamela being shot dead, the last vestige of faith in his heart was crushed;
He picked up the knife and put it to his chest. Thinking of his son's young and cute face, he finally couldn't bear to take this life.
When he was dying, he kept saying to his wife "I love you", "I will go home", "I swear I will go home"...
The loneliness of life is so chilling.
This also makes us wonder: Just imagine, if there was no mobile phone in the coffin, if Paul gave up asking for help from the outside world and sought self-rescue, if he dug out through the hole where the snake escaped, would the ending be different?
If you place all your hopes on others, your life no longer belongs to you.
It was not quicksand that buried Paul alive, but hope.
When you really need help, you will find that no one can be trusted.
Don't expect anyone to help you at any time. The only one who can save you is yourself.
Therefore, Paul did not dig it out by himself. It was not a bug, but a deliberate arrangement by the director! Because only in this way can people feel the horror of hope!"
In fact, many fans complained that the male protagonist in the movie could dig him out on his own, but he had to wait for rescue.
"It doesn't feel like it's buried deep enough! Bombs can blow up, so why not save yourself?"
"Yes, I feel the same way, why didn't I think of saving myself?"
"Also, does the appearance of the snake itself mean that it was not buried deeply?"
"Bombs can go very deep, right? Snakes can also dig very deep. The height of three to five meters may not be too deep for bombs, but for humans, how can they dig?"
"If it's about self-rescue, what's the difference between that and "127 Hours"? It's a confined space movie, so how can it be possible for you to save yourself?"
"Don't you think the protagonist is stupid? Why does he use a lighter to consume oxygen when he obviously has a flashlight?"
"Haha, didn't you see that the flashlight was found later? And at that time, he was almost dead. With such discomfort and despair, I think he even hoped that he could die faster!"
"Actually, there is no need to care so much. I only know that when the last bit of light is finally swallowed up by quicksand. I'm so sorry, Paul, I'm really sorry. With such a small number of actors (one), such a small space (coffin)
), with such limited props (mobile phones, lighters, flashlights, flasks, glow sticks, and knives) to capture such a sad story, the creativity and skills are amazing.
Isn't this enough?"
"We were just discussing this. Don't you think that the last battery on your phone took too long?"
"Yes, I have been guessing when the phone will run out of battery, but I didn't expect that it will still have power by the end of the movie!"
"Not only mobile phones but also batteries, flashlights and lighters seem to have not been used up. The real cause of death was those bombings. I have to say, this is really a huge irony!"
"No, no? No one really thinks that lighters, flashlights, and mobile phones will consume all the power and oxygen, so that the protagonist dies, right?
The ubiquitous irony in the movie is really interesting. To a certain extent, he was not killed by the kidnappers, but by their "own people"!
In particular, the head of the human resources department of CRT Company can be said to be the most eye-catching kid, showing his ugly face to the fullest!
And the "Mark White" found at the end is also the finishing touch!"
