Escape from Pretoria (2020) begins on a seemingly peaceful street, with the two protagonists placing bags in several inconspicuous corners of the street, looking like terrorists planting bombs: even if they know before entering the scene that the characters will be imprisoned, and even know that they are freedom fighters, the film opens with objects (bags fitted with explosive devices), parts of the body (footsteps, hands carrying and putting bags), and eyes still create the atmosphere of a crime movie. It wasn't until the bags exploded, and even the overwhelming leaflets scattered, repositioned the film, and wrote down the fate of the characters in a contrasting way—even radical but still weak propaganda campaigns that resulted in eight and twelve years in prison. However, is the atmosphere of the crime film at the beginning of the film an inevitability of anti-genre or hybrid genre?
In fact, this film depicting South Africa's anti-apartheid and freedom fighters escaping from prison shows us how "pure" such a genre can be.
Stills from Escape from Pretoria
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > escapes and types</h1>
Based on the premise that prison escape movies have "crime", they are generally subtypes under the big genre of crime films. Since it is a sub-genre, it also carries the basic properties of genre films, including genre expectations. Therefore, since it is a "prison escape" movie, then for most people, the "result" is not a suspense; besides, this film is still based on real people, if these people do not escape from prison, it is unlikely to become the theme of a commercial movie, and secondly, no one can circulate their escape process.
In films involving the special stage of prisons, there are naturally three main orientations: front, middle and back.
Before going to jail, it's what's going on with why the characters are in jail. If it is to develop into a prison escape film, it will add the underlying motivation for future prison escape in addition to the reason. This kind of orientation may be combined with sub-genres such as courtroom films. However, because "Escape from Pretoria" developed into a prison escape film, the scene of the trial was very short, which, in addition to leaving space for escape, also very economically created the impression that the efficiency of the sentences was to reflect the determination and toughness of the authorities against the injustices they resisted: the apartheid policy.
After going to prison, the treatment is how: what happened in prison. There is a situation in which life in prison is magnified, and even this scene is used as a spectacle, as the most important attraction of the film itself. A special ecology corresponding to special spaces is also born. If it develops into a prison escape film, then what comes with dealing with the characters is what kind of escape plan they plan, and how they intend to implement it. Therefore, emphasizing the difficulty of escaping from prison will also be an important part of the film. Escape from Pretoria is primarily this orientation, and can be said to be a very "clean" one, because even if the characters are still threatened by the harsh management of the jailers, and even the malicious killing atmosphere of the death row prisoners, the "masochistic" scenes in prison are limited to a minimum, which also emphasizes the intellectual image of the characters: they do not use brute force against external forces (whether from the management class or their peers), and wait and carry out their plans with a more composed attitude. And this fetish is even so extreme that when they go to jail, they rule out homosexuality or, more importantly, sexual assault with the phrase "forbidden to have sex anywhere in any way," an issue that is hard to avoid in most prison films, including The Shawshank Redemption (1994), which ranks first on IMDB.
After getting out of prison, what is dealt with is what: what the character did after leaving prison. Those who are naturally released from prison probably have to face the dilemma of re-adapting to society. Escapees, on the other hand, have several options: grievances, revenge, escape, and seclusion; of course, those who have completed their sentences may face the same four options.
Therefore, we understand that court movies, prison movies, and crime movies must have different ways and degrees of influence on prison escape movies, and their mixture is also inevitable. In fact, the choreographer also uses this inevitable mixture to strengthen the tension of the film, which also benefits the closed stage of the prison: because escaping from prison involves the safety of their lives, their attempts again and again, the director tries to present the atmosphere of a horror film.
The weakened soundtrack is used to reinforce the dangers of escape experiments in the dead of night. In particular, the camera always lets the audience accompany the characters, so that we, like them, do not know when the patrolling jailers will appear, sometimes even the footsteps are so vague, even no footsteps, just to shoot the iron door deep in the corridor outside the cell, a sense of tension that "ghosts will emerge at any time" arises spontaneously.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > plan and details</h1>
But it is also the closure of space and the inevitability of its limitations, especially since no matter how large the prison is, the range of activities of prisoners is always limited, which makes the space more cramped. Thus, how to play the diversity in this limited space, on the one hand, is to focus on the details, the details of the escape plan, such as Robert Bresson's "Escape from Death Row" (Un Condamné à mort s'est échappé (1956), even if the film does not provide "plan details" - because the character is not pre-planned, he just slowly finds a feasible plan along the "life" - but also because of his gradual formation of the escape plan, And the production of the required "tools" become the main body of the film. Just like the titles of many films of the same kind, death row inmates must escape, and the main characters of Escape from Pretoria must also escape from the infamous Pretoria prison.
The film can borrow some "conspiracy" crime movies like "The Shawshank Redemption", present the conceived scenes, and then make a comparison with the situation encountered in the actual execution to dialectical dramatic tension. For example, in "Bob le flambeur" or "The Killing" ( a French film and an American film coincidentally released in 1956 ) , the images of the characters planning crimes, as well as the various failures and even failures they really encounter in the process of committing the crime, presenting the same event in two different ways and styles, even in a thrifty situation, with different styles; and the errors in the execution process become dramatic. And evokes the audience's nervous identification, which Alfred Hitchcock often uses to make the audience uncomfortably but involuntarily stand in the criminal activities of the protagonist. But Escape from Pretoria is more of an oral account of the plan, just as the characters are purely conceptual about the ideals they defend. But the two go hand in hand: a successful escape from prison can in turn support their beliefs.
The film then focuses on the most important "props" in the plan: the key, the ground, and the various keyholes are often given the opportunity to be highlighted in close-ups. There is even an impressive "non-realistic" shot in the film: when Jenkin (Daniel Radcliffe) and Leonard (Mark Leonard Winter) start to walk out of their cell and try to expand their escape route, the camera looks at the two men at the keyhole, and when Jenkin inserts the keyhole into the keyhole and turns it, they spin on the other end of the keyhole, of course, with the space they are in, the corridor of the cell, They all spin up 360 degrees. At this moment, it is not yet the climax of the film, just over halfway through, so this "overturning" has also become an important image in the second half of the film: their lives will also begin to bump and even be completely overthrown.
If Jenkin and the others did escape with a wooden key, then his own adventure is full of literary metaphors: the fragility of the wood symbolizes the fragility of the plan, which fails if it is not careful, and of course, the death of the people is so easy, just as the black cleaners who had promised to assist them in their escape were "solved" by the prison authorities who seemed to perceive that something was wrong shortly before they were about to carry out their plan. Wood, plans, and human life form a complete image.
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > necessary determination</h1>
In fact, the cleanliness presented in the form of the film, whether it is to exclude the characters' deformed relationships, or to maintain their uniqueness when integrating into the style of different types, is ultimately to surround the characters and pile up their determination. This is also the interlocking audience psychology based on in the film, the horror film atmosphere is only a means, and emotional identification is the goal.
There are two preconditions for this emotional identity: the first is that of the wronged prisoner, which generally emphasizes the process of their trial or wrongful conviction. The second is the convicted good people, such as these people in the film, who commit the sin of thought, the idea of forming opposition and conflict with the ruler, so it is often related to political themes, and sometimes it is related to justice. Both of these people provoke a major recognition from the audience: recognition and even urging them to escape from prison. And agree with their philosophy (the director is not surprising that he is a black man) and expect them to get out of prison to continue their unfinished career - the end screen shows that they continue to join the anti-apartheid movement after fleeing to London, even if Jenkin never sees his black girlfriend again.
But there is also a reason why we are completely unaware of their imprisonment, which may be deliberately downplayed by the choreographer, such as Leonard the Frenchman in the film, whose crime is unknown, but as the final escape with the two protagonists, the choreographer needs to design an emotional element for him that is easy to resonate with: family affection. The sad father, who sees his son only once a year, for only half an hour at a time, is facing a crisis in which his wife wants to take his son out of South Africa.
Once the emotional element is sufficient, another layer of dramatic tension, arguably deeper, is placed.
A kind of antagonism from the characters, as the opposite of the protagonist, but those who do not want to escape from prison, those who do not want to help them escape from prison, of course, the jailers and their own threat, and even other people (such as the black cleaner with a tragic fate), can become antagonists, because their greatest threat is to become an obstacle to the protagonist's escape from prison, and form an abstract situation, as Descartes said, "indecision is the greatest evil", These fellow inmates who can also participate in the escape become great villains because they can't make up their minds: their ambiguous attitudes increase the dramatic potential, such as when Jenkin, Leonard, and Stephen Lee (Daniel Webber) are discussing the escape plan, and the old senior Goldberg (Ian Hart) who hears about them destroys and denounces them? To this end, he sometimes appears suddenly without the knowledge of the characters (including the audience).
Jenkin and others focused on their plans with great determination—the great good—and were unaffected by any blows or failures.
Another dramatic tension comes from the attempts and failures in executing the plan. Paradoxically, the audience expects them to succeed while at the same time longing for their failures, or at least not all at once. After all, the more difficult the escape, the more legendary the characters, even the fictional characters, such as the old wise man who escaped the terrible and complex Alcatraz island three times in The Rock (1996) (his wisdom image comes from the "Art of War" he was reading at hand when he appeared); the steepness of the prison can even create the ambiguity of the story, such as Martin Scorsese's "Shutter" Island, 2010) – Perhaps deeply influenced by Hong Kong films to make such a story as "going undercover" in prison. Thus, the legendary nature of Jenkin and others can be reinforced by trial and error; but more importantly, each failure becomes the audience's greater desire for their success.
This kind of psychological basis, which is subtly perceptible on the emotional side, becomes a deeper mechanism that dominates the audience's concern for action, and can even be said to ensure the audience's empathy even when the form or plot appears weak, empty and pale. For example, how Jenkin was able to accurately measure the size of each key just by observing it again and again, and using paper, but if they used this method to escape and succeed is a real premise, of course, it proves once again that the legend is legendary because of this "extraordinary" nature.
Moreover, the film also marks the time again and again, and the first few days of their imprisonment are used to carve the trajectory of time for this film, which must lose its sense of time due to repetition; although the 74th and 103rd days do not mean much to the audience, after all, the characters have not changed much, the hair and beard have neither grown longer nor cut short, only the scars on Stephen Lee's face - the wound he was beaten when he tried to escape from the courtroom, not from prison - the gradual recovery indicates the course of time.
However, the necessity of time lies in the fact that on the one hand, it responds to the realistic dimension of real people and real events, and on the other hand, in the small space without calendars and watches, the number condenses the calmness and composure of the characters, especially Jenkin, and his accurate recording of time is as precise as he is in making the wooden key for escaping from prison with the same precision. And time also records their continued passage (passion/passion).