Towards the end of Steven Knight’s 2013 film Locke, the titular character (Tom Hardy) says, “When I left the site just over two hours ago, I had a job, a wife, a home, and now I have none of those things. I have none of those things left. I just have myself and the car that I’m in. And I’m just driving, that’s it.” And that is it. For the film’s entire 85-minute runtime, Ivan Locke drives. Similarly in Gustav Möller’s 2018 film The Guilty, Asger Holm (Jakob Cedergren) never moves from the emergency call centre where he works. That’s what makes these films so arresting: with everything else stripped away, viewers are left with raw, realistic character studies, two powerhouse performances, and absolute masterclasses in both voice acting and sound design within these claustrophobic spaces.
Locke is about a man who, while driving to London for the premature birth of his illegitimate child, decides to confess to his wife, confront his past and deal with difficult colleagues and superiors on the eve of the most important challenge of his career. The Guilty is centred around a police officer awaiting trial — currently relegated to phone duties — who receives a desperate call from a seemingly kidnapped woman named Iben (Jessica Dinnage). Conceptually, both scenarios could’ve been made for radio, but their intimate, intense cinematography really helps to heighten the tension. The Guilty is a film to listen to as much as it’s one to watch. The camera never leaves Asger, and rarely draws back further than a medium shot. Locke’s wide opening shot of a construction site closing after a day’s work is cleverly juxtaposed against the cramped car, in which Locke is filmed almost exclusively in close-ups.
From the very beginning of Locke, there’s a sense of urgency: glimpses of the watch on Locke’s wrist, the flashing lights and blaring sirens of emergency vehicles speeding past, and the mounting pressures on him. The phone screen in the car becomes a character of its own, demonstrated by the implementation of shot-reverse-shot camera techniques. These calls are contrasted against one another — right after Locke learns that his unborn baby is in danger due to complications with the umbilical cord, his sons are heard watching the football on TV, cheering on their team. Locke’s youngest son, Eddie, asks him why he’s not “going mad” over the score. “I am, Eddie,” Locke replies in his unwaveringly calm voice. “I’m going mad inside, but I’m driving.”
Perhaps he is. An anger bubbles beneath his level-headed demeanour, small explosions only occurring when he’s alone — or in the company of his dead father. A metaphor for his conscience, this invisible figure is a reminder of everything Locke doesn’t want to be, and everything he’s becoming. Confined to this claustrophobic space — just him and his car, as quoted at the beginning — there’s no escaping himself, the decisions he’s made, nor the ones he must make tonight. As the warning glow of red and amber lights illuminating Locke’s face suggest, this is his story. With these disembodied voices his only company, the film creates a strong sense of isolation.
The Guilty has similar moments of introspection, such as the slow zoom towards Asger as his tablet dissolves in water. Sound, which is so significant to this film, is suddenly absent — until he is jolted out of his reverie by a co-worker, noise rushing back. Later, when Asger has confined himself to an even smaller and more solitary adjoining room, the diegetic sound disappears again as he pulls down the blinds, plunging himself into darkness, save for the ominous red light on his desk. Whenever Asger is on the phone, the camera stays close. But during particularly intense calls, such as when Asger listens as police pull over what turns out to be the wrong white van, he is seen in an extreme close-up. Viewers — or perhaps listeners — can hear the windscreen wipers of the police car ticking like a clock, as the light on Asger’s headset blinks.
However, most of the time, the camerawork is hardly visible while Asger is on the phone, as the viewer is so drawn into the unseen scene on the other end of the line. When Iben speaks in the car, I begin to imagine her situation similarly to if I’d read it in a novel; when the other officers search Iben’s house for her baby boy — whom it is later discovered she killed — the creaking of doors and the commentary of the policeman build a tangible sense of place, despite Asger (and the audience) being blindly, helplessly distant. Knowing that Iben’s daughter was found covered in blood also exacerbates the tension in this scene, as Asger and the audience wait with bated breath for a discovery all know will be horrific.
While phone calls are used as a narrative device in both films, The Guilty doesn’t just rely on what can be heard, but also on what can’t, such as when calls abruptly end, leaving Asger and the viewers on the edges of their seats. The tension is briefly broken in both films, in different ways. Locke lightens the tone with a subtle humour, mainly from Donal’s (Andrew Scott) drunken antics, while The Guilty’s intensity is offset with other callers, whose troubles diminish in comparison.
The limited, claustrophobic settings of both films help craft focussed character studies. While there is certainly plot in both, the stories actually appear to be a journey (literal or otherwise) to redemption, or at least an attempt at it. After Asger realises what’s really going on — altering his perceptions of guilt and innocence, just as the audience has been going back and forth on this with all the different characters involved — he decides to take Iben’s final call in the main room, emerging from darkness into the light, and they confess to each other. Unlike Asger, Locke knows that this night is his purgatory, and actually has “a list of things” he is going to sort out on the drive. Early on, however, Locke arrives at a crossroads, and, after a moment’s pause, turns right, indicating that no matter how difficult his journey gets, he is finally on the right track.
Locke and The Guilty create suspense through their uses of claustrophobic spaces, putting extreme emphasis on atmospheric sound design, tight scripts and strong performances. Through its use of setting, The Guilty manages to be a pulse-raising thriller, despite no action at all onscreen; and Locke conveys its protagonist’s whole life in less than an hour and a half in a car. These films are not only captivating, but physically and emotionally draining: staying with these characters throughout their ordeals practically puts us in the passenger seat of Locke’s car, or on the desk beside Asger. I was transfixed until their very last moments.
