BOXED UP // A FILM REVIEW OF "BURIAL"
Set immediately after WWII, the new "midnight movie" BURIAL has a lot of heavy subject to tell in B-movie form, which is an impressive feat to try. The main story tells of a group of Russian soldiers who are tasked with moving and hiding Hitler's body, delivering it to Stalin in Moscow. They aren't exactly thrilled at this task, but they begin to do it anyway. They are being tracked by a group of Nazi soldiers, soldiers that are called "Werewolves." They burn a substance that causes hallucinations, rendering their opponent disoriented and off balance as they "see things." It's also a story being told by an older woman in 1991 named Anna Marshall (Harriet Walter). A man (David Alexander Parker) breaks into her home and reveals himself to be a Neo-Nazi who wants answers from her. However, Anna isn't the easy mark he had assumed. She very easily takes him down, chaining him to her radiator. The answers he thinks he has is only part of the story. And since he's there, she wants to set the record straight. So she tells him this crazy story of when she was a Russian soldier who was actually named Brana (Charlotte Vega) and how they continued to move Hilter's body from Poland to Moscow and the strange events that surrounded it.
Why they are transporting his body is clear: Stalin wants to look his fallen enemy in the eye and see his dead body for himself. For Brana, her reasoning of carrying out her duties is a bit different. She wants the world to see that he wasn't some sort of supervillain. He was just a man, and now he's dead. The soldiers following them want to capture the box they are carrying (which they assume is the body) and make some propaganda showing that it wasn't Hitler at all and that he lives on somewhere, to further their fear. Written and Directed by Ben Parker, Burial deals with some heavy topics but it is most definitely a B-movie with thrills that doesn't get bogged down with trivial things such as the Russian and German soldiers almost always speak English (why the Polish soldiers don't is also just another inconsistency). And even though the film starts to buckle under its own ambitions, Parker and the strong ensemble cast keep it spooky and suspenseful enough to keep you engaged. And a strong prologue and epilogue by Harriet Walter is very nicely done, making sure that it leaves you off balance just enough as you stumble back into the night.
GRADE: B
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Ben Parker STARRING Charlotte Vega, Tom Felton, Barry Ward, Harriet Walter OPENS IN SELECT THEATRES AND ON DEMAND SEPTEMBER 2ND. FOR MORE INFO: BURIAL