CAPTIVITY

US/Russia, 2007, 84 minutes, Colour.
Elisha Cuthbert, Daniel Gillies, Pruitt Taylor Vince.
Directed by Roland Joffe.

Most audiences will want to leave fairly early in the film. Elissa Cuthbert plays a model who is abducted and subjected to unrelenting torture by a masked figure for half the running time. By the time that some more interesting elements and twists come into the film, it is too late. Most audiences will have given up. Only die-hard horror fans (who proclaim their views on the IMDb blog) have positive things to say about Captivity.

Its career in US release was dogged by controversy when a series of large hoardings in Los Angeles showing the steps in the model’s captivity were considered too graphic and were removed.

The main surprise is that the film (a US co-production with Mosfilms, Moscow, and intended as a groundbreaker in collaboration) was directed by Roland Joffe who had begun his career with The Killing Fields and The Mission. We are a long, long way from those achievements despite the publicity for the film constantly referring to his being a man ‘of vision and profound philosophy’. He gives the film a glossy treatment and style but to little avail.

At one stage, the man in captivity with the model calls out (ironically as it turns out) to the tormenter, ‘you twisted sicko freak’ – and one wonders was he referring to the makers – or even to us in the audience watching.

1.The impact of the film? Its brutality, nastiness? The horror genre? The twist? For what audience was the film made? Most audiences unable to sit through it?

2.The intentions of the writer, Larry Cohen and his strong tradition of thrillers? The producers and the exploitation angle? The director, his past achievements? The indication that this was a film that was profound, psychological and philosophical? Did the film bear this out?

3.The American setting, the studios and filming? Photography? The streets? The house, the dungeon, the cellar, the eeriness of the interiors? The implements for a torture chamber? The musical score?

4.The title, the focus on the reality, the themes?

5.The opening, the plaster of paris, the mask on the victim? Draining the blood? Indication of tone and style?

6.Jennifer, her career, going to the club, the drink, its being interfered with, her collapse? Her imprisonment?

7.The first half of the film and the detail of Jennifer’s torture? Explicit, ugly? The brutality? Audience response to this? How well did the film delineate the character of Jennifer, her fears, her phobias, the dark, isolation? Her almost being killed many times? Her being in the glass case and the sand falling?

8.Gary, the contact, the words? Her reliance on him? The growing dependence, the shared torture, his teeth? Back in the room, the sexual encounter?

9.Audiences anticipating that Gary was not a victim? The shadowy presence of Ben, large, brutal, watching Jennifer, torturing her? In the room, in the ducts? Gary and his drugging Jennifer after the sex, going upstairs?

10.The flashback to their mother’s murder, Gary killing their mother, Ben watching? The photos? The talk, the scrapbooks, the victims? Gary and the effect of Jennifer? His killing Ben?

11.The arrival of the police, watching the television – changing for the commercial and discovering the truth? Gary killing them? One not dying, his approach to Jennifer, her fear and killing him? Ben and his revival and her killing him as well?

12.Gary, seeming nice, disconnecting the phones? Her discovering the truth? The albums?

13.The pursuit throughout the house, the confrontations, Jennifer and her strong stances? Shooting Gary? Her escape into the light?

14.The impact of this kind of film? Gary said, in the script, that the torturer was a twisted sicko freak – and the makers? And the audiences?