Screen Share | Of prison films and the fear of confinement
From prison dramas like Visaranai to survival films like 127 Hours and horror titles like From, cinema has artfully drawn upon the primal fear of being restrained to a claustrophobic setting
(Originally published in The Hindu on January 31, 2025)
I feared that it would be a dingy underground room that would see me off in the end, until a few months ago, when I wandered astray on a bird-watching trail in Kerala under the scorching Malabar sun (a forest guard thought I was being overdramatic since I was only less than a kilometre off). Being restrained to a claustrophobic quadrant or a large but suffocating dome forms the rock bed of many anxieties. Films have artfully drawn upon this primal fear of humans.
This fear even lies at the foundation of state-sanctioned confines like prisons. Rebelling against oppression offers such catharsis that even a law-abiding citizen like yours truly imagines being Steve McQueen from The Great Escape. But that rose-tinted image of being a hero, or having beer with your squad on a prison rooftop, belies the dark reality of the prison system; as a friend reminds me, while “hope is a good thing and no good thing ever dies,” I certainly wouldn’t make it in prison. As Vetri Maaran shows in Visaranai, depravity runs deep in these corrupt, barbaric sanctuaries. Perhaps if things go south, I only hope to be someone resembling Divine G from Sing Sing, walking like poetry, talking Shakespeare, calling fellow men ‘beloved.’ Or pass with the spirit of Roberto Benigni in the Holocaust film Life Is Beautiful.
A grimmer idea is being lodged in special homes or asylums (like Sofia Falcone in The Penguin), or ……
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