Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Marc Schießer
Starring: Sina Martens, Artjom Gilz, Luise Helm, Poal Cairo
Trunk is a German movie about a woman trapped in the
trunk of a car, and somehow they resisted calling it "Das Boot." If
you've seen movies like Buried and
Oxygen, you'll be familiar with this concept: a lone protagonist finds
themselves trapped in a small, claustrophobic space and must fashion an
escape before their time runs out.
Here we find twentysomething Malina (Sina Martens) waking up in
the open boot of a stationary car with a groggy memory of how she ended
up there. Attempting to flee, she discovers she can't feel her legs, but
before the trunk is slammed shut she manages to retrieve her phone from
a bag of her belongings dumped outside the car.
Using her phone, Malina dials 911 and is put in touch with emergency
responder Elisa (Luise Helm), who does her best to help Malina
survive her ordeal. Things are complicated by Malina having no details
about the car beyond it being green in colour and missing one of its
wing mirrors. As Malina attempts to contact family members and loved
ones, some details of why she may have been abducted begin to
emerge.
With large portions of the film centred on Malina's interactions with
Elisa, the movie often plays like a reversal of the tense Danish
thriller
The Guilty
(which was later remade as
a not so tense American thriller). Helm manages to communicate a lot through her vocal performance, her
pauses for breath making us question if she really believes what she's
saying to reassure Malina. It's a clever touch that reminded me of how
much tension is mined from the blinking cursors of the
Unfriended
movies.
As our distressed protagonist, Martens pulls off just the right balance
of vulnerable victim and resourceful heroine. We learn early on that
Malina has medical experience, which comes in handy as her body gets
increasingly battered, and she's able to make clever MacGyver style use
of the various bits of junk she finds in the trunk. At the same time
it's clear Malina is in no position to overpower her kidnapper. There's
a wonderful moment where said abductor taunts Malina, leading her to
snarl at him before realising she has no real ability to fight him.
Martens plays this brief moment of defiance and resignation in a manner
that really makes us feel for Malina's predicament, and makes us
question whether she might make it through after all.
Writer/director Marc Schießer keeps his debut feature cinematic through various devices, using
digital camera footage to provide brief ambiguous flashbacks and a
hole in the rear light to allow us to see the world outside. A
To Live and Die in LA-esque flight through oncoming traffic as the car speeds down the
wrong side of the autobahn is rendered nerve-wracking through this
limited POV.
It may have been wise to set Trunk in the 2000s, as it
never quite reckons with how modern technology would be incorporated
into this scenario. The modern smartphone offers a myriad of options
that Malina fails to exploit, such as livestreaming her ordeal or
calling on the army of social media followers a young woman who looks
like Martens would no doubt have amassed. There's one very clever trick
late on involving a picture message weaponised by Malina, but otherwise
she might just as well have been using a Nokia 3310 in 2001.
