CITADEL
Ireland/UK, 2012, 86 minutes, Colour.
Aneurin Barnard, James Cosmo, Wunmu Mosaku.
Directed by Ciaran Foy.
Citadel is a small-budget films, set in Glasgow, with Irish finance. It was directed by Ciaran Foy who was to go to the United States and direct the critically and financially successful thriller, Sinister 2.
The setting of this film is a rundown housing estate in Glasgow, the title referring to the high-rise building in the centre, an ominous image, with bleak surroundings, dark interiors and flats, but with feral children in the basement, multiplying abductions, blind and aggressive.
Aneurin Barnard is the father who sees his pregnant wife attacked by the children. He gets out of hospital, the baby is born, but she dies – and he meets a strange priest, James Cosmo, at the funeral. He returns to the Citadel to protect his child, helped by a very sympathetic nurse, Wunmu Mosaku. He is warned by the priest that he and the baby are in danger. Eventually, the priest decides to rewire the Citadel, the young man confronts the children and is able to recover his abducted baby. The priest, sacrifices himself and the building explodes, the young man rescues his child.
The film was billed as a horror story and that is true of the climax, but it is really more of terror story.
1. A contemporary story? In contemporary Glasgow? The dilapidated housing estate? The feral children? Abductions? Confronting the children?
2. The Glasgow setting, the image of the high rise block, like a contemporary citadel? The grounds outside the building? The interiors, the apartments, corridors, lifts, basements? The touch of the eerie? The musical score?
3. The credibility of the plot, the parents of the children, the increasing number of children, abductions, blind and the darkness, the attacks? The explanations given about their being there?
4. Tommy, his pregnant wife, their going out, his fears, in the lift, seeing his wife, the children’s attack, his helplessness, taking her to hospital, in care, the birth of the child, his holding the child, his wife’s death?
5. The funeral, the strange priest and his comments, that the children were coming to get him?
6. His fears, going back to the flat, with the child, his care of the child? The character of the nurse, her care, for the child, her love for Tommy? Threats and her fear in going to work, in the subway? The child being taken, his being distraught?
7. The priest, his character, mechanical, gruff manner, not particularly priestly? His warnings? His being with the young boy, the young boy being blind, rescued from the feral children? Accompanying the priest, helping, his motivation?
8. The plan, the priest and his working on the wiring of the building, to set up an explosion? Tommy, searching for his child, the help of the blind child, going down into the basement – the touches of horror and terror, the children and their kind of life, finding the baby, rescuing the baby, realising that the children could not see, his passing through quietly and escaping?
9. The wire, the explosion, the collapse of the building, the priest sacrificing himself?
10. A film of urban terror?
