|
 've always been more than a little perplexed by movies
that require an exclusively American cast to use a "foreign" accent
even if the entire movie is in English. I've always thought, "Well, if
they're speaking English and we the audience are supposed to assume that they're
speaking in their character's native tongue, why in the world are the actors
doing an 'accent'?" To be more specific: Foreigners trying to speak English
have an accent, but if you're in a movie and supposedly speaking in your
character's native tongue even though you're speaking English, then you wouldn't
have an accent. Get it?
Rob Green's "The Bunker", about World War II
German soldiers seeking shelter in a forest bunker during the last days of the
war, utilizes all English actors playing Germans, but no one does a silly
"German accent". The bunker that the characters seek refuge in is
directly over a series of incomplete tunnels that winds their way underneath the
forest. And according to one of the bunker's residents, an old soldier name
Mirus (John Carlisle), the site used to be a mass grave holding the remains of
those who had died of the black plague during the Middle Ages. The new arrivals
scoff at this story; that is, until strange things begin occurring in the
tunnels underneath them…
"The Bunker" opens very well, with 3 Germans
already in the tunnel trying to keep something unseen back. The story then
shifts forward in time, with our main characters (German soldiers) escaping the American advance
through the forest and finally finding shelter in the bunker, which is being
manned by the elderly Mirus and the teen Neumann (Andrew Lee-Potts). If there is
a hero among the Germans, I suppose it would be Baumann (Jason Flemyng), who
provides the voice of reason in direct opposition to Schenke (Andrew Tiernan), a
hardcore soldier who is more than a little bit unstable to begin with.
As the film moves away from its World War II setting and
into its supernatural elements, it gradually becomes more and more possible that
there is something in those tunnels underneath the bunker after all.
Clive Dawson's screenplay gives us brief, fragmented flashbacks into an event
that had occurred during the war that may or may not be responsible for the
current haunting of this particular group of soldiers. Are these sudden
"haunting" the result of a past evil deeds, or just guilty conscience
at work?
Director Rob Green puts the claustrophobic confines of the
tunnels to good use. Green and screenwriter Dawson were obviously trying to
balance the perceived supernatural happenings and the soldiers' American
paranoia. When unseen forces bang at a steel door trying to access the tunnels,
we are meant to weigh rather it's evil spirits trying to get in or, as the
Germans believe, the Americans trying to gain access. Because the film never
lets us see any actual ghostly specters up to this point, the viewers are just
as unsure as the Germans about what is behind those doors, or at the other end
of those tunnels.
Toward the end, when we do see ghostly specters slowly but
surely stalking our characters through the tunnels, we are still unsure if they
are real or part of the soldiers' paranoia. Green uses slick photography to warp
the character's perspective, twisting and turning the specters to give them the
impression of being figments of a frightened imagination rather than real
spirits. This notion of "Is it real or is it just their imagination?"
works all the way to the end, even when bones scattered across the tunnels' only
escape route seem to come alive. And yes, the word "seem" is intended.
The inherent risk of a movie that requires all of its
characters to wear the same uniform is that it's hard to tell them apart.
Besides a few characters, this was the case with "The Bunker." I knew
who Baumann was mostly because he was the only voice of reason in the entire
group; and Schenke made himself an individual because he's the obvious psycho.
The young Private and the old Private are also easy to tell apart, but the rest?
Forget about it. Their German names, which are rarely mentioned, don't help
matters.
"The Bunker" works and achieves everything it
strives for, and while the beginning seems to give away the film's central
question of reality vs. paranoia, the rest of the movie brings us back to that
neverending question. Even when Green gives us visions of the ghostly specters,
we're still not entirely sure if they're real. As a result "The
Bunker" also works as a psychological thriller that keeps you guessing well
after the credits roll. Sometimes no answer is the perfect answer.
|
