Chained
Harrowing
destruction of innocence
It’s
ironic (and deeply tragic) that now we’re in the midst of awards season and our
cinemas are full to the gunnels of bloated, flabby, gong-friendly epics (Lincoln,
Zero Dark Thirty and, yes, even Django Unchained) that require little or no active
thought or engagement on the part of the audience, probably one of the best
films of the year and certainly one off the grimmest, most thought-provoking,
will slip past most people’s radars as Jennifer Chambers Lynch’s bleak, beautiful, haunting Chained is granted the most
perfunctory of cinema releases this Friday before being rushed to DVD on Monday
4th February.
Returning
home after an afternoon trip to the cinema young Tim (Evan Bird) and his mother Sarah (Julia
Ormond) make
the mistake of getting into the wrong cab when they are picked up by the
psychopathic Bob (Vincent D’Onofrio).
A prolific serial killer, Bob rapes and murders Sarah but decides to
keep Tim to serve him.
Rechristening the boy “Rabbit” he chains him to the wall of his living
room, allowing him just enough freedom of movement to move around Bob’s
isolated house, prepare his meals and clean up after Bob’s messy kills every
time he drags home a terrified, screaming woman.
Years
pass, a bond developing between captor and victim, becoming a horrific,
dysfunctional parody of the one-parent family, as Bob begins instructing the
older Rabbit (Eamon Farren) in human anatomy and behaviour, forcing him to learn,
moulding him, shaping him, grooming him to be just like Bob. As Rabbit struggles desperately to hold
onto his humanity, Bob decides it’s time he had the taste of a woman…
“If
you steal from me, you get a beating. If you try an' escape, or you don't keep
the house clean, you get a beating. If you make me nervous, or get in my way at
all, a beating. From now on this is your world. It is only you, me, and them. I
will call you Rabbit.” Echoing the ordeal
of Natascha Kampusch and the perverse desires and impulses of men like Josef Fritzl and Marc Dutroux, Chained is a dark, harrowing study of
the destruction of innocence, of how children can be brutalised and turned into
monsters in a never-ending cycle of abuse. It’s a bleak, depressing, claustrophobic descent into Hell
that offers little respite or escape for either its audience or its victim.
After
the debacle that was the thankfully little-seen Bollywood horror Hisss, Chambers Lynch has crafted a
sublimely disturbing film that’s every frame feels like it leaches the clammy
madness of its central antagonist.
In Bob (a possible nod to her father’s Twin Peaks?) she’s given us a repellent,
reprehensible villain who’s worryingly sympathetic. The ogre of an adult fairytale, flashbacks hint that Bob
wasn’t born a monster, he was made one, much as he’s trying to fashion Rabbit
in his own likeness. In the
process she’s gifted Vincent D’Onofrio his most compelling, complex performance
in decades, a terrifying mix of perverse monster and stern father-figure who,
after lecturing Rabbit on the importance of educating and bettering oneself,
asks: “You don't want to be shackled to this house for rest of your life, do
you?” The irony of course being that Rabbit is quite literally shackled to the
wall. As Rabbit, Australian actor
Eamon Farren is a revelation, giving a subtle, understated, increasingly
ambiguous performance that grips while Evan Bird as the younger Rabbit is
heartbreaking. The true star of
the film however is Jennifer Chambers Lynch who brings an unflinching feminist
perspective to what could have been appallingly misogynistic material, crafting
a film that’s merciless in its growing sense of dread and unease.
Oppressive,
bleak, brutal and utterly terrifying, Chained is an unsettling, intelligent, genuinely
transgressive piece of cinema that needs to be experienced. If this film doesn’t give you sleepless
nights, you probably already have a teenager chained up in your basement.
David Watson
Directed by:
Written by:
Produced by:
Starring:
Genres:
Horror,
Thriller
Language:
English
Runtime:
1 hour 34
minutes (approx.)
Certificate:
18
Rating:
5/5
UK Cinema
Release Date:
Friday
1st February
UK
DVD Release Date:
Monday
4th February
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