Debut: ‘Trapped’: How Class Won’t Kill, But Will Make You Submit
Jocks, nerds, cheerleaders, horse girls, and stoners. Every preppy suburban high school has cliques and clichés that play into early indicators of class, with jocks being the most notable ones of them all. A large majority of the time these (mostly White) boys are known for their rude dispositions and have no issue throwing money at anything to solve their problems. The audience is hoping that eventually, by the end of any film, they will get what’s coming to them because there is no way they should be allowed to get away scot-free, right? Well, in Trapped by Sam and David Cutler-Kreutz, the audience may never get their sweet revenge, but the film does serve subtle, complex themes of class, race, and cyclical violence right on a silver platter. Or more appropriately, right on a rat trap.
The film starts off by introducing the audience to Joaquin, a janitor who is working the graveyard shift at what is seemingly a high school campus. What starts to intrigue the audience is the following introduction to Joaquin’s son, Tony, who should be in bed, judging by his apparent age. However, he is being pushed on his father’s cleaning cart. Questions begin to brew: What is Tony doing here so late? Why doesn’t he have a babysitter? Does Joaquin’s supervisor know? All of these questions will be answered by the end of this thrilling 15-minute experience, but not before Joaquin has to confront a group of high school jocks who have trespassed into the school’s gym after hours for a senior prank.
The film strategically places both parties, Tony and Joaquin vs. the jocks, on opposite ends of the gym, coupled with a range of close-up, mid, and long shots to highlight the distance of their positions physically but also the pressure they are in mentally. Joaquin and Tony come from a visibly and audibly Latino background, and Joaquin doesn't have much help with his son and is picking up the graveyard shift, with no babysitter, to make some more money. Conversely, the jocks are young White boys in their senior year, looking to have fun and avoid getting caught and punished. This adds to the racial context of the film, but the Cutler-Kreutz brothers also wanted to highlight that this film specifically “speaks to the cycles of inequality throughout the US that begin in certain private schools, to how we choose to raise our children, and to the ways wealth and privilege affect kids.” These boys are meant to represent the divide between class and wealth in America, and this directing duo is making it their mission to show the audience how that affects people from different socioeconomic backgrounds.
“Go fetch” is a game people tend to play with their dog when they throw something and need their pet to retrieve it. Now imagine that phrase being used on you, ordering you to pick up a $500 bribe for helping these Jocks commit their senior prank. This action, as well as the idea of senior pranks, begs the same question to the audience and the directors: “Who are the people we are really pranking?" and "Whose life does this really affect?” The audience gets to see in real time how silly games like this can nearly ruin the night and/or life of someone who may not be in a position to lose their job and get another one. This is another aspect that the audience gets to witness from Joaquin as well; he is constantly putting his pride aside and accepting belittlement from others. It subtly showcases the nature of Joaquin’s situation but also the nature of similar situations across the country, which is exactly what the Cutler-Kruetz’s are trying to say with this film.
Though the initial idea of this film doesn’t pass as something that would strike fear into the hearts of most, the editing and sound design do an amazing job at making the audience feel the same level of tension that our main character might be feeling as the night unfolds by making a familiar place feel unfamiliar. This duo is “really interested in the spookiness of being in a space, feeling the vacuum of space, feeling the fact that you’re in a school, which is a place that we all know but it’s twisted.”
Unfortunately, because this is only a short film, it does not get to do the deepest dive into these complex themes. However, this will not stop the Cutler-Kruetz brothers from creating and directing more stories, because word on the street is that they are “in the process of attaching producers to [their] first feature!” If this prospective feature-length film is anything like Trapped, then it will be full of intricacy, taking themes of socioeconomic struggles and making them palatable and thrilling to a wide array of audiences.