Captivity: A small production of desperate spaces

Director: Roland Joffe

Writers: Larry Cohen / Joseph Tura

Starring: Eliza Kusbert / Daniel Gillise / Pruitt Taylor Vince

Genre: Thriller / Horror / Crime

Official website: http://captivitythemovie.com/

Country/Region of Production: USA / Russia

Language: English

Release: 2007-03-01 (USA)

Runtime: 96 minutes

Also known as: Suffocation Photo / Imprisoned / Forbidden Room Love Wolf

IMDb link: tt0374563

Although the small space is desperate, the space of the mind is not directly proportional to the volume of reality.

Similar films in the United States have been done a lot, a closed environment, a perverted murderer, so the evil and bloody began to be staged. In such a film, escape is an important story line, how to escape from this enclosed space and escape the killing maniac are the focus of the film, more importantly, this chase and escape competition is very suitable for hollywood-style video style, but this film is somewhat different.

Obviously, the director does not intend to repeat a story of escape, but hopes to find this environment and the hidden murderer's panic in the character's heart, in other words, the director is pursuing a psychological thriller, which has been fully realized from Jennifer's "fear of darkness" in the film.

For a fledgling model, she is mostly faced with the sunny side, including confidence in beauty and all the posters that are posted, which makes her completely resistant to sin, so when the kidnapping suddenly occurs, everything changes.

Jennifer awoke from the darkness and saw a beautiful view of the beach, as if it were her professional place, but it was only an illusion, an illusion, and in an instant, the beauty disappeared, and she found herself kidnapped, imprisoned in a completely enclosed and almost impossible space to escape, and the blow was undoubtedly enormous. Jennifer faced a collapse.

Facing the cold wall, Jennifer's only thing she could do after a moment of emotional excitement was to compromise and obey, and she tried to escape from the place, but all her efforts ended in failure, so the whole person began to despair. From the film, we know that the two perverted murderers seem to be playing a game of despair, using the same method for every woman, to see how long they can endure despair, which is a test of the limit, and Jennifer, a woman who is afraid of darkness, will also face despair.

At this time, another detainee appeared, a man. When anyone is desperate to the extreme, all she can accept is to find someone who is in the same despair as she is, and the two desperate hearts will inevitably be united in the space of despair. Of course, the film makes a good preparation for this combination.

We know that Jennifer's despair has a process of finding herself in a desperate situation, fleeing, and then failing, and when another imprisoned man appears, this process of despair needs to be repeated again, because when two desperate people meet for the first time, there is a possibility of hope. In other words, despair + despair is first and foremost hope here, so the two people begin a new round of escape, everything seems so real, even sitting on the car, but the strength of this desperate space is incomparable. The escape of the two men once again ended in failure, and the despair of the two men truly reached unity.

Obviously, Jennifer's two escapes and ultimate failure only added heavier weight to her despair. Realistically, there is a sense of interdependence between Jennifer and the man, and darkness seems to have no effect anymore, because despair itself cannot be changed, so who cares that despair continues? For a woman, the biggest support at this time is the appearance of a man. Purely out of a feminine consciousness, Jennifer pleaded with the murderer not to kill the man in custody and to forget the desperate situation. Making love is a metaphysical thing, and having sex in a desperate space, in a desperate mood, is obviously another manifestation of despair, but this despair makes people subconsciously increase their ability to endure.

The next plot is actually nothing new, the man is obviously a criminal, he fell in love with Jennifer for a moment, of course, thanks to Jennifer's intercession that came entirely from the female consciousness. Female consciousness is very important in this film, Jennifer was caught only as an individual, the film contains four sets of clothes, the first set is a short skirt, which means that Jennifer fell from the model's sunny world to the dark world, this beginning, with a social instinct. The second set of clothes is the existence of the individual, Jennifer has been dominated by the dark space, she lost her freedom to become a person, while the third set of clothes is short in time, and the style is very strong to represent a serious gender misalignment, while the fourth set of clothes is the return of the female character. It can be seen that in this desperate space, Jennifer's position attributes are constantly changing. When the true face of the man is revealed, we see another change in Jennifer's costume, an almost male costume that makes her independent, rebelling against deception, and even replacing the criminal, until the individual punishes the criminal.

So, the clothes actually represent Jennifer's transformation as a woman in the film. The model in the real society, ignorant, is spied on by all men, after being caught, lost the sunshine, became an ordinary individual in the dark, double despair after facing the "same fate" of the male back to the female identity, at this time is a woman's role, and finally faced with sin and male deception, Jennifer took the male role, especially at the end of the film, Jennifer walked out of that room alone, walking on the cold street, she is already a completely independent individual, more importantly, She is no longer afraid of the dark, nor is she afraid of deception and sin from men.

In fact, the film is extremely careful in many places, especially the creation of a claustrophobic environment, it can be seen that the director did not create a chaotic and bloody place according to the conventional American film, on the contrary, the room is clean and tidy, but all the walls and furnishings have a cold gray tone, especially the mirror that peels off the gray and silver powder to reveal the true color of the glass, which is an anti-feminine environment and the color of the mechanical world. On the one hand, it deepens the damage to the female identity in the theme, while on the other hand, it shows the social nature of this closed environment. So, we hear the dialogue between the hero and heroine across the glass, without any secrets between each other, in the equal despair between each other, that is, a direct connection between the life of the upper class and the life of the lower class, and it is not difficult for us to understand, what does the gray silver powder represent?

The intention of this film is absolutely high-level, and from many details, the director's extraordinary feelings and meaning to be expressed can be shown, but it is a pity that the Hollywood-style ending makes all of this a little dim, and the American-made label will somewhat mislead some audiences to pay attention to this film, I am afraid that this is the real reason why this film is not highly evaluated. Objectively speaking, the content of this film is not enough to complete the director's wishes, but compared to other desperate space films of the same kind, this film is obviously higher!