Midnight Express — Directed by AlanParker. Based on the book Midnight Express written by BillyHayes.
Humans are social animals. But why are humans often tagged with animals? Not because of the variety of emotions, but the rage to kill when you know you’ve got nothing to lose. That makes us all animals.
One of the films that’s absolutely made up of blood flesh and bones.
We would’ve seen a variety of prison films from The Shawshank Redemption to Hunger but this film stands out easily from all of them. Of course, it talks about the prison break, about the wardens, the guy who steals inside, the guy who gets raped and various other formats of depression an inmate goes through, but what makes it so special? The geography of the prison and the government which loses its track of sanity in the laws it makes!
What it would be like to get busted for smuggling 2 kilos of Hashish in the airport runway on the night of a nationwide terror alert in Turkey? Or, how would you feel if you come to know that an inmate serves years of a sentence for stealing two candlesticks from a mosque? Such a tight and a seamless screenplay makes Midnight Express a prison film of its own league. From the early 70s to the mid-70s the prison, the Turkish government, the way how the Turks see the world and how does a foreigner feels when he gets trapped in such a prison are all tailored with emotions scene after scene.
They say “don’t pick a fight” but if the fight picks you, leave everything on the mat and fight! Midnight Express gives me one such feeling.
Speaking of each department the film appreciation would span paragraph after paragraph, but let me cut things short and tell you, this is just more than a must watch!
And yeah, find out why the title is Midnight Express ;)