Reviews

The film addresses Peru's unique prison system of punishment. It begins with the notorious riot at Lima’s El Sexto prison on March 27, 1984. The fuzzy news footage of the chaotic confrontation between police officers and prisoners was captured by Saxer directly from a TV screen using his camera. The riot, which stemmed from inmates demanding better living conditions, resulted in 22 deaths, including two hostages, and left 10 others injured.



After that, the camera masterfully pans over to the deserts surrounding Lima, followed by rivers and highlands, and finally, a vast wilderness known as La Colonia Penal Agrícola del Sepa (or Sepa in short) in the eastern part of Peru of the upper Amazon region. This marshy plain had been used by the Peruvian government as an open-air exile camp since 1951. It was dubbed the “green prison without walls,” where prisoners who had already served many years of their sentences were sent to cultivate crops on the 37,000-hectare land. They were even allowed to live there with their families. The system sounds eerily similar to how the Soviet Union and Russian Empire expanded their frontiers in Siberia.



While one American inmate, a devout Christian, saw this as a divine blessing and a model for prison systems worldwide, the Peruvian prison administration seemed to have consciously or unconsciously forgotten these “free prisoners,” many of whom had long completed their sentences but never received their release orders.



It was only after existing for more than 30 years as a penal colony that filming was allowed in Sepa to document and tell the stories of these suffering prisoners. Saxer’s documentary adopts a calm observational style, though its pacing and visual pauses reveal a sense of sympathy. Through the narration of Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, we learn about the harsh realities of this exile camp, which deviates far from the public’s idealized notions of an “open prison.”

please film

An excellent example of social cinema of Latin America. The story is straightforward but profound and poignant. A testament of what happens in rural areas abandoned by the state. The script is so good as to keep the tension and unpredictability until the very end.

Nobody could understand the contemporary World, without watching this masterpiace: based on a Ken Kesey novel, directed by Tomáš "Miloš" Forman, "Someone flew over the cuckoo's nest" will bring you inside the psicological approach followed by the psichiatric schools and Universities, their errors, and which are the concequences about mental health control. People are considered like beasts. A dramatic and strong view, inside a mental care clinic. Who can decide what is normal? Forced medical treatments, justified, by ipotetic mental illnesses, a way to bypass the law, a way to kill people, without nobody who protect you, more than a drama, a tragedy. I sware it ,you will cry, wait until the end, you will always remember this film along your life.

Good

A genuine treat!

Nicki Minaj escalated

Ok

Powerful and creative. Amazing to see one actor carry the whole movie and keep my attention the whole time. Thoughtfully written, directed, filmed and edited. Highly recommend. Looking forward to future films.

Muchísimo humor gran película

Las películas de los viejos tiempos

A masterpiece in the tradition of Malick and Sagal

What a beauty of a film. Carefully crafted. What a surprising film to open the VLAFF in Vancouver. There are a few instances that will make you gasp.