SECUESTRADOS (KIDNAPPED)
Spain, 2010, 85 minutes. Colour.
Fernando Cayo, Ana Wagener, Manuela Velles, Cesar Diaz, Martijn Kuiper, Guillermo Barrientos.
Directed by Miguel Angel Vivas.
Best to say first that, though this is an expertly crafted film, its subject matter and treatment are not what most audiences would choose to see.
Not that its plot has not been seen on screen before. There were two versions of The Desperate Hours, in 1955 and in 1990, where a family was kept in their house by violent intruders. Austrian Michael Haneke made the alarming Funny Games in 1997, where two young men tormented a family in their home. He remade it in 2007, scene by scene in an American setting.
This time we are in Spain, a prosperous family who have just moved into a new and better house which, in mid-sentence about how they will celebrate, three masked burglars burst in through the window. Their treatment of the family is brutal, action offscreen at first, but more coming into focus as the film goes on. The director has used a hand-held camera to heighten the intensity and urgency and most of the takes are quite long, meaning that the audience follows the characters around the house, sharing their anxieties and their pain. At times, the device of a split screen is used so that we see two aspects of the story but can choose to look at one if we find the other too gruelling.
The action takes place during one night with the three members of the family, mother, father and 18 year old daughter, and the three burglars (who, as is the trend in many European films, are from Eastern Europe – which suggests that they are being made something of a scapegoat for social unrest and crime in Western Europe). Most of the action is within the house, though one criminal takes the father to ATMS to withdraw savings. A few others come into the picture, the girl’s boyfriend, a security guard and a frightened woman at an ATM.
There is a mysterious opening, focusing on a bound man with a bag over his head who struggles to stop a motorist to warn his family. An alternative story? A dream? Just a tease?
Had there been some hope at the end rather than a nihilistic pessimism, the film might offer some catharsis to those identifying with the family and their plight. But, this is more like Jacobean drama with everyone dead on stage, a disaster story rather than a tragedy.
1. The impact of the film? Technical bravura? Thematic and issues?
2. A tragedy, or just a family disaster? Blood-drenched? Nihilistic? No opportunity for catharsis?
3. The tradition of families besieged in their homes, The Desperate Hours, Funny Games…?
4. A Spanish variation on the theme, the ethos of the family, prosperous, the cantankerous teenager, moving house? The ordinary situation and the sudden invasion?
5. The Eastern European villains – target, bias, scapegoated?
6. The opening: the long take of the masked man, sudden breathing, his walking, on the road, wanting the mobile phone? What did this mean? In connection with the rest of the plot? Or not?
7. The handheld camera, the long single takes and their effect, audiences immersed in the intimacy, the intensity? The split-screen effect? Audiences choosing which image to look at? The contrast and comparisons of the two?
8. Jaime: his age, an ordinary businessman, the focus on his driving home, arriving at home, the builders, the delivery of the packages? His relationship with his wife, with his daughter? The hopes of each for the new house? Discussions? Phone calls, unpacking the boxes? Marta as his wife, age, the relationship? The discussions with her daughter, cooking the meal, Isa and her age, arguing with her mother, being hurtful, wilful? Her phone call, defying her mother, getting her father on-side?
9. The robbers, no explanation for their motivations? Smashing into the house, their brutality, physical violence, putting the goods in bags? The threats to each member of the family? The credit cards and their numbers? Taking Jaime to the ATMs? The women in fear? Jaime having to wait till after midnight for the next day’s extraction of money? Driving, the threats of the chief and his pressure? The phone calls? Jaime crashing the car, his injuries? The father returning home? Freeing his family? The robber returning – and shooting?
10. The characters of the two women, bound together, the violent threats, their fears, Isa and her continued whimpering? The man with his mask, watching the TV, surfing the channels, eating? His language? The younger man, his fears? Their talking in Albanian?
11. Cesar and Isa, his arrival, their looking at the screen, allowing him in, his persistent knocking? Apprehending him, his fears, being brutalised, put in the basement?
12. The security guard, knocking at the door, doing his job, the reports of screams? His entering, the robber pretending to be the husband, offering the cup of coffee, the wife and her being petrified? The death of the security guard, the close-up of his leg jerking?
13. The rape, the man taking Isa upstairs, his brutality, the younger man and his being upset, rescuing Isa?
14. Isa, hitting the rapist on the head, hiding in the bathroom, the scissors, the attack, killing him? The brutality of her bashing him?
15. The younger man, his plea, hitting Isa, taking the stolen goods? His holding the gun against Jaime, Jaime holding the gun against him?
16. Jaime, the rescue, Cesar in the basement, untying Marta? The hopes, the phone call? The shootings? Isa surviving and being stabbed?
17. What was the audience left with? The banal song and its lyrics at the end – and the director’s intentions in presenting the crime, the violence, the brutality – and no outlet for hope?
