‘The lives of Sing Sing’: prison and theater, in vain | Culture

The prison genre is very rewarding for the viewer. I imagine psychology could explain the reasons. They are telling you about the most infamous place you can occupy on the face of the Earth, about the loss of freedom, about forced confinement. And we onlookers are witnesses of that hell from the tranquility and refuge of the movie theater, or our home. Warm or in possession of air conditioning. Seeing guilty or innocent people who are having a terrible time. And knowing that the legitimate dream of the prisoners is focused on the end of their sentence or on anticipating it by escaping from their dungeons, knowing what they risk if the risky story goes wrong.

If that cinema is good, vibrant or very skillful, tension is guaranteed. Also the wish that after so much effort and dissimulation they manage to escape (if we sympathize with the inmates). And may they be happy and eat partridges. I have forgotten quite a few prison movies that are as predictable as they are silly, but I have a grateful and eternal memory of several that are memorable. And I know that every god, including the signer, will never forget Life sentenceas exciting as it is distressing. American cinema has a weakness for this genre. Eastwood as performer and his teacher Don Siegel, at the helm, nailed it in Escape from Alcatraz. And it was very hard, also beautiful, The man from Alcatraz. And in France the masterful ones were born A man sentenced to death has escapedby Robert Bresson; The evasionby Jacques Becker, and a prophetby Jacques Audiard. The most worthy film was filmed in Spain Cell 211by Daniel Monzón, starring unforgettably by Luis Tosar.

It is cold and the day is very gloomy. In other words, a very conducive environment to see a story that takes place in prison. I only wanted to imagine the intrigue, since there is very little or it fails to capture my attention. It is titled The Lives of Sing Sing. And it takes place in that prison with so many references. The protagonists, almost all black, several of them ex-convicts, do not intend to escape from there, but they have found a remedy to ease their mind and feel a certain freedom in their unfortunate situation. And they have signed up for a rehabilitation program in which they are allowed to put on plays. And that art allows them a break, a certain illusion, that the passage of time is not so hard, the relative freedom that art brings in the midst of confinement. And they have specialized in the divine Shakespeare.

At first it is A Midsummer Night’s Dream. and then it will come Hamlet. And loving the immortal monologue of that tormented prince who declared: “Sleep. Maybe dream. And to think that with a dream we put an end to the sorrow of the heart and the numerous conflicts of the flesh”, I just got tired of them repeating that beautiful and profound reflection so many times in the film. And I say: I already know, change the sequence a little.

It is directed by Greg Kwedar. His work does not seem particularly meritorious to me. I see traces everywhere of the spirit of cinema indie, which is not exactly one of my favorites. With some exceptions, of course. And that earthy photograph bothers me. And I’m not particularly moved by the much-praised performances by Colman Domingo and Clarence Maclin either. In short: I’m quite bored. Although I wish that the protagonists do not get caught again, that they enjoy their freedom, that they can interpret Shakespeare in the outside world.