Released: November 2021 (Netflix)
Length: 90 Minutes
Certificate: 15
Director: Alexandre Moratto
Starring: Christian Malheiros, Rodrigo Santoro, Bruno Rocha, Vitor Julian, Lucas Oranmian, Cecília Homem de Mello and Dirce Thomaz
As one of the more unexplored and underrepresented problems in today’s world, the trafficking of people and their labour remains pervasive and incredibly damaging to thousands of lives. Out of Brazil comes 7 Prisoners, a production that explores this issue in a close and detailed manner. For the most part it’s very well done, but issues with character imbalances and plot threads keep it from reaching higher.
Initially we follow four individuals; Mateus (Christian Malheiros), Ezequiel (Vitor Julian), Isaque (Lucas Oranmian) and Mello (Cecília Homem) who leave their families and rural homes behind for better pastures. They head into the city to seek their fortunes, only to be pressed into forced labour by the nefarious Luca (Rodrigo Santoro). The domineering boss forces them to work long hours recycling copper wire with next to no pay and little in the way of freedom. As the torment goes on, Mateus stands as an outlier, obtaining more autonomy at the expense of the other inmates. The tone of 7 Prisoners is very realistic; once the men are taken into forced labour we never leave their perspective and rarely exit the garage that serves as their prison. This puts the audience in their position as they are unable to see their families or contact the authorities for help. There is one loose end and that’s the surrounding authorities; at one point, an work inspector arrives to check the establishment with Mateus forced to play along to hide the foul play. This and other authorities are never seen again after their appearance, leaving their interventions unresolved. The ultimate climax would have been more believable if this thread had been properly addressed.
The characters of 7 Prisoners are split into two categories; the exploited and the exploiters; both are well defined by their positions in the story. The former are downcast and hopeless, with pale looks on their faces as they slave away at hard labour. On the other hand, Luca is ruthless and calculating; his threatening mannerisms slowly peel back as we learn more about him. This goes hand-in-hand with Mateus’s personal progression. His decisions are often handled without any dialogue and you can feel the internal struggle between self-preservation and assisting the others. Over time, the distance between the protagonist and his captor narrows and we see the larger scale of exploitation of debts and exploitation taking shape. In this brutal trade, everyone is in debt to someone above them, forming a cycle of suffering that’s incredibly tough to break. While Mateus is very well rounded and developed, other characters do fall short; the film loses its balance as we hear so little from them for the rest of the runtime. This may have been intentional, aiming to show the growing distance between Mateus and his friends. But by learning more about each of them, the audience’s sympathy would have risen further. While the reactions to their predicament are often visceral and powerfully acted, the other six prisoners don’t factor into the plot as much as they could have.
While it needed more detail for its titular characters, 7 Prisoners is a grim and unflinching look at human trafficking. With a bleak situation established, the way the characters are pitted against each other makes for an engaging narrative. In short, it gets across the horror of the character’s predicament and leaves you questioning what anyone would do if they were forced into servitude.
Rating: 3.5/5 Stars (Good)
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