Some years ago, before we had found the Funny Little Bungalow, my brother, who shall hereby be referred to as Uncle Bacon Nose, came to our house on a Friday evening for a DVD night. He’d often suggest such entertainment, and would frequently supply the all-important DVD, chosen on the basis that it was cheap, and looked slightly interesting.
In this way, we sat through many a film that, on balance, was actually, worth a watch. Kings of Summer, The Blind Side, A Song for Marion. They were all really rather good.
Others were iffy. Take, for example, the delightful film whose name I have forgotten, that essentially follows Liam Neeson on a cold and uncomfortable journey through snow until he is eaten by wolves. And then there was the one my brother presented which had the charming title, “Frozen”, but was very far removed from the movie of the same name that we have all come to know and love. Yep – in Bacon Nose’s Frozen, they mainly all die. Horribly.
Personally, I prefer a happy ending.
On the Friday night in question, Uncle Bacon Nose rocked up with a small plastic case entitled “Buried”. The title didn’t grab me particularly, but it starred Ryan Reynolds, so looked bearable enough.
Once the Four Very Little Seymours had calmed down and been tucked up in bed after Uncle Bacon Nose had willicked them all up, we sat down to watch the film.
Well…
I struggle to know where to begin. Essentially, I would advise anyone to NOT WATCH IT. (I am sorry, Mr Reynolds, but I cannot lie.) Never before have I been so stressed out by watching something so boring and pointless. OK, boring may not be quite the right word, but it has no real* story, and so I cannot enthuse.
As for the end – pah! I do not want to sit through two hours of stress and psychological discomfort simply to find out that Mr R doesn’t last much longer than his iPhone battery. Spoiler alert? I couldn’t spoil that crud. It did that all by itself.
So, why did I not just turn off? By the time I was committed to finding out when someone would come to save Ryan and take him to a nearby hotel for a lovely hot shower, at which point my patience would have been richly rewarded, everyone else on the sofa beside me had dropped off to sleep. Uncle Bacon Nose, Big Seymour and Bacon Nose’s Stick Lady Love had all left me to it, and departed to the Land of Nod. Nobody else would have been able to tell me the outcome. I had to sit it out.
At this time, Mini Seymour was a baby. She would, no doubt, have me up in the night. In addition, Boy Seymour would probably be jumping on my head at five o’clock the next morning.
Regardless of these probabilities, I had still been subjected to a late night with no gain, and zero enjoyment.
However, fast-forward three and a half years, and that flipping film must have done something right. I suppose any director’s dream is that his or her work will be remembered. And right about now, being buried like in Buried is at the forefront of my mind.
You see, the Funny Little Bungalow is slowly disappearing behind a wall of bricks. As I sit in my kitchen, the light levels appear to be changing on a daily basis, as Big Seymour builds us in. Concrete blocks rise up high outside the back door, and I can no longer see the sky.
Of course, we are a way off being interred, like poor old Ryan. We are above ground, for one thing. But I can’t help feeling a little claustrophobic when I consider that
there’s only one door, and even that is doomed…
Imagination is a terribly wonderful thing. It’s what has got us into this mess in the first place. You need some insight to want to live here. Watching rubbishy, depressing films will not lead us away from our goal – in fact, such things often spur us on, as we remember that it could be worse, and we could be trapped in a wooden coffin in Baghdad with only a lighter, a flashlight (aka-torch), a flask, a knife, some glow sticks(!), a pen, a pencil and that ultimately useless mobile phone.
We haven’t had a DVD night recently. This might be because I banned Uncle Bacon Nose from bringing me such mind-altering dross. Or it may have something to do with the fact that he, himself now has someone to jump on his head during the early hours of Saturday mornings.
But if Buried has taught me one thing, it’s that there are always people in this world who are worse off, and who would be glad of a leaking, mouldy, self-barricaded bungalow as opposed to a form of terminal entrapment somewhere dusty, war-torn and hot. Even if they are fictitious.
And of course, I am certainly checking my iPhone battery more often. Which is never a bad thing.
(* It has no happy, uplifting, life-affirming story, which, in my head, are the ones to watch for pleasure on a Friday night. Like A Song for Marion. Or The Blind Side.)
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