Beyond the Walls

Prison as a metaphor for society at large: there are the rulers/jailers and the ruled/prisoners; the governors play a game of divide and rule with the governed in order to ensure their dominance. Beyond the Walls hammers home this cliché in an Israeli prison, where the authorities are ugly sadists and the prisoners' leaders - both Arab and Jew - tall, handsome figures of heroic moral stature. The enduring impression is not the liberal homiletics, however, but rather the unremitting beastliness of the prisoners' lives: a foul stew of humiliation, beatings and homosexual rape. Still, if you like your politics simplistic and your movies brutal - as apparently do the judges who awarded this film the International Critics Prize at the 1984 Venice Festival - you might enjoy the touching details, good character performances, and overall enthusiasm that embellish this thin allegory.