Escape From Prison of Life: New Film Shown at Tai Kwun is Thought-provoking

Prison Architect is a film made by Cao Fei, an artist from mainland China. Tai Kwun commissioned Cao Fei to make this film, and it is a part of the artist’s institutional exhibition held in Tai Kwun—A hollow in a world too full. This film talked about a male prisoner and a female architect in different space-time, they both conjured up imagination and experiences about imprisonment. 

There is an interesting sequence in the film. Three men dressed in white were in a large, empty room, each with white paint on his face, and they were doing nothing. Then the leading man was send from his own prison cell to this room, looking at these men curiously. Suddenly, these men came up to him, surrounded him in the middle and began to circle, faster and faster. Fear began to appear on the face of the leading man, he fled back to his small prison cell, gasping for breath.

Many Hong Kong people are suffering from the same issue. They have freedom, time and space, but they don’t feel free. Large space or plenty of time may put more pressure on them, it may because of this space can give them space of thinking, examining their inner hearts.

“I think the empty room will make the leading man panic,” said William Tsang, an independent art writer, marketer and organizer from Hong Kong. “Those three men in the room are like some kinds of ghosts, like the actor’s old friends or different ideas in his mind. These things made him scared and gave him lots of pressure.”

“The emphasis on introspection and spiritual transformation does not mean that space is necessarily comfortable. But it must be a space that gives people a certain level of mental pressure.” the leading actress said in the film. It suggests that not only the a narrow space can be used as a prison, but empty spaces can sometimes cause a kind of imprisonment.

At the exit door of the screening hall, I interviewed some viewers, asked them to talk about this sequence. 

“The room is like freedom,” one of the viewers Mr. Chan said. “I think the whole film is talking about what imprisonment real is. Maybe sometimes freedom can turn to imprisonment.”

But when asked if he would also feel imprisoned in his daily life, Mr.Chan said his life is ok, and he hardly ever felt imprisoned.

“Sometimes I have lots of spare time, but I don’t know what to do, and I feel aimless,” another viewer Jason Wong said, he is a university student. “I’m just thinking, but every time I think about doing things, or thinking about some things in my life, I feel a lot of pressure. I think the director wants us to know, not only prisoners in the prison are not free, people outside the prison may also be imprisoned.”

“Work, family, too many annoying things to consider,” said Ms. Ho, a lady in her thirties. She came to Tai Kwun alone, and she was one of the few people who can seriously watch the whole movie. “I really like one of the lines: People can be imprisoned by anything, body, view, family, memory and so on. That is modern people, city people.”

I believe Ms.Ho is not the only one. In modern society, high-rise buildings are like prison walls, and people in the city are imprisoned. So the prison will not disappear, because it has already penetrated into the lives of each of us. As the film says, it is actually next door to you.

“After all, each of us is a prisoner of life.” Said by the leading woman in the film. But there must be someone who can successfully escape from prison.

At the end of the film, along with the music of Auld Lang Syne, there appeared a piece of jailbreak in Chow Yun Fat in Prison on Fire. This expresses a kind of farewell and is also a expectation for the future. Maybe one day, we will finally escape from the prison of life.