CELDA 211

Yesterday I watched a Spanish film because my mother forces me to watch it because she said that it was a great film. I didn’t want to watch it because I hardly ever like Spanish films but this was one of those I really like. It's a prison film directed by the Spanish director Daniel Monzón. The film tells us a story of the prisoner’s rebellion in a Spanish jail.

The film starts when Juan Oliver arrives to the jail. Juan Oliver is a married man who is going to work in the jail; he is married with Elena and they are going to be parents. He allegedly started working in the jail the day after but he goes a day earlier because he wants to make a good impression. He arrives to the prison and two guards and he do a tour of the jail. During this tour something fall on Juan’s head and let him unconscious so the two guards take Juan and lay him on the bed of one empty cell, the cell 211. Meanwhile, Malamadre (one prisoner) hurt one guard and he starts a rebellion. The two guards aware of the violent situation fled and leave Juan unconscious and hurt in the cell. When Juan Oliver wakes up he takes stock of the situation, he needs to seem like a prisoner to survive. So Juan Oliver starts to take his shoelace, his rings and his necklace off. Suddenly a prisoner comes in the cell and sees Juan and he brings Juan to Malamadre, the ringleader, because he doesn’t know him. Juan says to Malamadre and all the prisoners that he is a new prisoner. He says to them that he killed a man. Everybody believes him, and Malamadre nickname him calzones (because he wears ridiculous pants). Juan not only is believed but also Malamadre takes him under his wing. Malamadre discovers that in the prison are some ETA members (ETA is a Spanish terrorist group) and take them as hostages so they can negotiate with the police if they want something. Meanwhile a security guard of the prison phones Juan Oliver’s wife, Elena and he says to her that she needs to go to her home and he’ll tell her what happen to Juan. She becomes very nervous and goes to the prison. When she arrives there are a lot of people, the family of the prisoners, shouting at the entrance of the jail and a lot of TV cameras and journalists. In the prison the prisoners are aware of what is the situation outside the jail, because they are watching their family shouting at the entrance. Suddenly the jail police go outside and beat a lot of people, they hit Elena too and Juan watched it on TV. Elena dies and so dies their baby and Juan becomes very furious and agresive. Juan says to Malamadre that he wants to see the man who killed Elena, Utrilla an important police. So some time after Utrilla goes to the prison and says that Juan isn’t a prisoner and Juan kills him. Suddenly the police go into the jail, beat the prisoners and stop the rebellion. Juan dies but Malamadre doesn’t, he defends Juan till the end, although he knew Juan was a police, because they became friends.