Pretoria prison, South Africa, 1978.
In the dead of night, the sound of creeping was heard in the dark single cell.
Tim Jenkin, the only prisoner in the whole prison who didn't sleep.
By the light of the moonlight projected by the small window, he opened the bottom of the kettle and pulled out a rag, a few pieces of wood, half a glue, and a knife wrapped in sandpaper...
This is secretly hidden during the day when I was doing carpentry.
During the work, the kettle was taken for a routine examination, and Tim was so frightened that his whole body stiffened, and his heart almost jumped out of his throat...
Fortunately, the jailer only poured out the water in the pot and did not find the mystery at the bottom of the pot.
At this moment, Tim is holding a knife, carefully carving a dent on the wooden block, polishing it a little bit with sandpaper, and then sticking the carved wooden block with glue...
Next, he took a note from the lampshade.
On the slip of paper, a sketch drawn with a pencil.
According to the sketch, he carved grooves of varying heights at the end of the wood...
Soon, a wooden key was finished.
He walked to the iron gate, trembled and inserted the key into the hole, slowly turning...
The first time, it got stuck.
His heart sank, he took another deep breath, his hands increased their strength, and their palms were already sweating...
Second, just listen to the click...
Pulling out the key, the iron door opened.
It's the 74th day of Tim's prison, and he finally sees the dawn of freedom...
Two seconds later, however, he was hit to the bottom again.
It turned out that outside the iron gate was a thicker iron door, and what was worse was that there was no keyhole on the door, and it could only be opened from the outside...
Released in the UK on March 6 this year, "Escape from Pretoria" is another transformation of "Harry Potter" Daniel Redcliff, known to people around the world. At present, Douban has a score of 7.7.
The film is based on true events.
Between 1948 and 1991, the Republic of South Africa introduced apartheid.
In this country, this magical reality is often staged:
On one side, the police beat up black people and shot black children like rabbits, while on the other hand, white people live in a peaceful and quiet space, enjoying the sun on their own beach and drinking cold drinks...
But among the white people who enjoyed the full privileges, there were people like Tim Jenkin.
He was a traitor to the privileged class, openly opposing racial discrimination and spreading racially equal and free speech everywhere.
In 1978, Tim Jenkin and his companions, regarded as terrorists for participating in secret anti-apartheid operations, were arrested and imprisoned.
Tim was sentenced to 12 years...
Tim's story, written by himself, has also been made into a documentary.
This movie depicts the whole process of Tim from prison to prison escape in great detail, with a degree of restoration of more than 80%.
On the right is the character archetype
Therefore, it has no fancy accidents and coincidences, and the process is not complicated, but the tension created by the film still makes people hold their breath, their hearts beat faster, and their palms sweat.
Some netizens commented: Watching the movie experience 5 stars, prison break film is like words! Extremely nervous without dragging mud and water, although old-fashioned, but very clear how to tease the audience's nerves.
Some people say: Real technology to get out of prison, on the importance of mastering a carpentry craft, I doubt that the male protagonist himself really enjoys the process of making keys!
It is said that the film and television drama industry has several major three views, but the fascinating themes of the fans: bank robbery, printing counterfeit money, gangster fighting, exam cheating...
One of them is jailbreaking.
"The Shawshank Redemption", which has ranked first in the Top 250 Douban movies for many years;
In the first season of the American drama "Prison Break", 170,000 people scored a high score of 9.3;
There is also "Hole", which critics consider to be "the most intense, powerful and shocking crime film in the history of cinema"...
Posters: The Shawshank Redemption (left); Prison Break (center); Hole (right)
If you think it's just because the screenwriters have big enough brains to make up magical stories, then Escape from Pretoria reminds you that the gods and men are real.
As described at the beginning of the article, Tim's way to open the door of freedom is mainly by dispensing a key. It sounds much easier than digging tunnels or something, but in fact, he must open 10 doors to escape.
The objective conditions are quite bad:
You have to find an opportunity to get close to the jailer, see what the key looks like, print it in your mind, and then go back and draw it;
If you can't find metal, you can only make a wooden key, and the wooden key may be broken in the keyhole;
You have to be careful to hide tools and materials, do it blindly in the middle of the night, and have to go dark to see if it can be opened;
All of this, we must find a way to hide it from the eyes of the jailer...
Super perseverance, strong psychological quality, and excellent luck, without one.
As we all know, prison is really a magical place, full of talents...
For example, some people wrote books in prison, "Marco Polo's Travels" and "Wilde's Prison Record", Bai Yang's "Outline of the History of Chinese", were all completed in prison...
The movie "Alcatraz's Bird Keeper" records such a true story:
A young man sentenced to life imprisonment recovered one day when a sick bird flew into his cell and, under his careful care.
Since then, he has worked hard in prison and has become an internationally renowned ornithologist.
Stills from Alcatraz's Bird Keeper
Beijing Youth Daily also reported on such a news:
Hui Jiling, the former director of a state-owned enterprise who was sentenced to a suspended death sentence for theft and bribery, was imprisoned for 19 years, completed a total of 126 technological inventions, 31 technological innovations, applied for and obtained 14 national patents, and was called "the inventor inside the big wall" by prison cadres and police.
His inventions of "water-saving faucets" and "light-controlled shearing machine protective fences" have been put into use in prisons.
Even Gao Xiaosong, in the six months of drunk driving and serving a prison sentence, read the complete works of Jin Yong and the Encyclopedia Britannica, and translated a book...
And prison escape, can be regarded as the biggest and most exciting project in prison life, especially to train people.
Tim's story was included in the American documentary Prison Break (Season 2), which chronicles many of the same prison escapees as Tim.
Except for Tim, who is a political prisoner, almost everyone else is guilty of heinous crimes: drug trafficking, homicide, money laundering, rape...
When you see their thrilling escape process, you will have a second, can't help but feel sorry for them: what is wrong with doing, to go to the crime? They all have such a powerful ability, what can not be done?
These people are all technical streams, with meticulous observation and hands-on ability.
When in prison, the wall height, ventilation system and cameras are looked at, and the number of external wall tiles is calculated to determine the area of the cell.
They are all natural masters of spatial judgment, and can estimate distance, height, and size by feeling;
At the same time, he is also a super modeling and drawing expert, without measurement tools, he can draw drawings that are inseparable from eight or nine.
There is no watch, but it can accurately read the seconds, can predict when the jailer will appear, the patrolling guards, how often to walk back and forth...
Master all kinds of tools, touch the material, you can think of what kind of tools to cut...
For example, they are well versed in human nature and can find management loopholes.
Prison breakers believe that prison guards, like any job in the world, have times of negligence.
As it turns out, they were right.
In one episode, a jailbreaker tries to pry the window and escape, but his cell door is facing the jailer's seat, and his every move is under surveillance.
This seems to be a problem that cannot be solved at all.
But he observed closely that many people would hang the sheets on the cell door during bath time and change clothes inside, which was just enough to block the view of the jailer.
He tried it too, and sure enough, it didn't arouse suspicion. So, he used these few minutes to remove the window...
In another episode, two inmates in a cell prepare to take turns digging tunnels in the basement.
They found that several rounds of the day were unnamed, and the jailer simply glanced through the cell door.
They made a dummy and put it on the bed, pretending that he was sleeping, hiding the sky and the sea.
A cell with a camera is foolproof? That can only say, you are too unimaginative!
Although there is a camera in the cell, in order to protect privacy, the position of the toilet is not captured by the camera.
So, a prisoner took advantage of the gap between going to the toilet every day and chiseled a hole in the ceiling above the toilet...
Then, calculating the moment the jailer left the monitor in the middle of the night, sneaked out of bed, replaced the dummy into bed, and climbed out of the hole himself...
If you think about it, jailbreaking is not much different from the qualities required to participate in a game, do a project, or start a company.
They all must have a strong psychological quality, not panic when things happen, calmly cope, and be able to adapt to changes.
They all have to have a detailed plan, be able to anticipate several steps, even the details of the shadow of the building, must be taken into account.
They are usually still in good health, and in order to escape smoothly, they desperately exercise their bodies...
Yuei Shiratori, the great god of japanese prison escape, can run 120 kilometers a day, can tear off handcuffs with his bare hands, and can pick up a 60-kilogram rice bag with his arms raised flat.
They all have to have super patience, this is a protracted battle, have to wait for the most appropriate time...
Many times, there is also a need for teamwork spirit, at critical moments, not abandoning peers, and even risking to save their companions...
No wonder some netizens said: Obviously it is to persuade people not to escape from prison, but I have seen the enthusiasm of inspirational films.
And among these qualities, the most important is unswerving faith.
Only with the determination to win will we leave no way back, go all out, and force out the greatest potential in extreme circumstances.
These people who have escaped from prison, each has their own different reasons.
Some people are afraid of being beaten and sodomized, some people want to meet children who have not grown up, and some people want to say "I'm sorry" to their father who is suffering from cancer...
Perhaps, people who have not been forced into a desperate situation will never know that they can be so cattle...