Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Just what I expected

Boring

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

I was surprised by the level of brutality in this film, both physical and psychological. The psychological abuse was even more of a weight than the physical - mind games, blame, isolation, collective responsibility and punishments, shaming, repeated shows of system's strength and of the children's weakness and helplessness - it felt like a mix of a nightmarish boarding school, a kind of cult or Nazi camp for brainwashing and a slave-labor camp for prisoners of war, not of young offenders, many of whom sent for petty crimes.The kids don't have any visitors from family, they don't seem to have any kind of free time for any leisure whatsoever - there is no escape from the drudgery, yet despite being putting their heads down and accepting their lives as slaves, the corrections officers still abused the prisoner-laborers physically, mentally and sexually.Yet it's the hope that sometimes kills you. The location of the island, so close to the mainland yet so far from everyone, makes it worse. Unlike Siberian prisons where there really is no hope of escape, this one is close enough to freedom that kids get the idea that they could make it. The guards have no dogs, no fences, no barbed wire, so there's hope for escape, but winter and hunger will catch up with you.The soundtrack is haunting and fits perfectly with the desolate, hopeless environment. The movie really sucks you in and you empathize with the kids in it, getting enraged at the injustice of it all.It's difficult to watch, but it's a must watch for fans of film.

This uncompromising Norwegian drama is set on the island prison of Bastoy in the Oslo fjord and is based on a true story. The English title alludes to another story of escape from a more famous island prison but there is nothing heroic about Marius Holst's picture. This is a brutal and soul-destroying place and the film is bleakly and brilliantly filmed and very well played by its almost exclusively male cast, (Benjamin Helstad and Trond Nilssen are outstanding as two of the incarcerated boys as is Stellan Starsgard as the misguided governor). File it next to the likes of "Escape from Alcatraz" if you will but this is much more Bressonian than that.

This film 'inspired by real events' is set in the borstal on the Norwegian island of Bastøy in the winter of 1915. We are introduced to the establishment with new inmate Erling, inmate C19. It quickly becomes apparent that life there is harsh; the boys are expected to work hard and any infringement of the rules will incur severe punishments. Erling befriends Olav, inmate C1 who is the senior inmate in their dormitory. Olav is due to be released soon so doesn't want to rock the boat but when he witnesses Bråthen, the housefather, abusing a boy Erling persuades him to inform the governor. Rather than investigate the governor accuses him of lying. The events that follow lead up to Erling and Olav being moved to solitary confinement however they escape and soon there is a full scale revolt against the prison staff. As the military arrive to quell the uprising Erling and Olav attempt to escape the island by crossing the frozen fjord.While this certainly isn't a feel-good film it has enough feel-good moments to get us through the more gruelling scenes and the sheer bleakness of the setting. The cast do a fine job; Benjamin Helstad and Trond Nilssen are great as Erling and Olav; Kristoffer Joner nicely captures the cowardly unpleasantness of Bråthen and Stellan Skarsgård puts in a fine performance as the governor who clearly thinks he is doing a good job helping the boys when it is clear that his regime is far from good. The story moves along at a decent pace; neither feeling rushed nor dragging. The film has a very cold feel; it isn't just the snow on the ground; the light has that permanent blue tint of an overcast winter day and the boys are clearly not dressed for the weather. While the regime we see is harsh the film doesn't show anything too unpleasant meaning the film is suitable for teenagers and older. Overall this might not be a film to 'enjoy' but it is certainly worth watching.These comments are based on watching the film in Norwegian with English subtitles.

King of Devil's Island (2010)A very straight forward, hard hitting, well acted account based on a true story of a boy's penal colony on a Norwegian Island early in the 20th Century.That says it all. It is what it is, and there is the almost inevitable rebel and leader among the boys against the sometimes evil, sometimes indifferent adults who rule the group with false benevolence. You know who is right and who is wrong, and you follow the plot with a mixture of expectation and outrage. It's dramatic great stuff. Yes, been there and seen that somehow before, but it's severe and beautiful in its setting and intense and provocative within.It might be interesting to compare this to more famous prison movies (the dubious "Shawshank" and earlier classics like "Birdman from Alcatraz") to realize how much this one is holding to a line of truth. As much as the events are extreme (eventually), the filmmaking is filled with restraint. Compare further to a movie like "Shutter Island" and you know that this one is practically a grey, subdued documentary.And this is to its advantage. It's not a mind-blowing experience in cinema terms--it's just a really well done, focused, sensitive telling of a forgotten story of repression and survival and maybe, in the end, the every lifting human spirit.