Lock-up

In the current political climate, questions are being asked about why our youth are so disillusioned and disconnected from society – and what can be done to remedy it. Lock-up takes a hard-line stance, examining the role of a brutal correction facility in guiding wayward youngsters back onto the right track.

Luis is a single parent in despair over his irresponsible, pot-smoking son, Fran. Eventually, his patience runs out and he enrols his errant son in the Tranquillity Valley centre – a facility which re-educates problematic teenagers. Against his will, Fran is bundled into the back of a van and instated within the grey walls of the institution.

Under a brutal and repetitive regime, the young men and women are taught discipline and respect. But what goes on behind closed doors is not what it is advertised in the centre’s cosy literature. Sensory deprivation and cruel methods of torture are employed regularly. Will Fran reform or revolt?

Lock-up opens with a doom-laden – and very Orwellian – voiceover warning the audience about systems of social control which were employed throughout the 20th century becoming more widely available in the 21st. The scene plays out over a rudimentary graphic: a screen of static with a solitary red dot moving rhythmically from side-to-side. It’s strangely disconcerting – presumably because it deliberately plays on ideas of hypnotism. The next screen informs the audience that the film was inspired by real events – a warning which always needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Fran is introduced in a strange split-screen arrangement – setup to resemble a web browser, he is depicted centrally as if viewed on a webcam. He’s flanked on either side by two friends labelled as Nuria and Migue. Fran can clearly be seen drinking beer and smoking weed as his father enters and takes his son to task for keeping him awake. As a social comment on the disconnection between parents and their children, and the growing importance of technology in teenage life, it’s an original and reasonably successful idea. As a piece of drama it falls down entirely thanks to a lack of urgency from Fran’s father – there is no sense of either exasperation or anger. It’s a shame, as following the unsettling opening; this scene should have really gripped the audience from the outset.

Despite failing to make much of an impact initially, a sense of tension soon develops, as both Fran and his father are seen in their daily lives. An effective montage cross-cuts between the two characters as they go about their day – Fran idly playing with his remote control car having skipped an important exam, whilst his father’s anger slowly builds during his day at work. It’s clear that Fran’s apathy will soon lead to his dad exploding.

There’s something of Darron Aronofsky’s Requiem For A Dream about the way repeated visual motifs and almost hallucinatory scenes are sound tracked by insistent music and repeated mantras in building to the inevitable crescendo which will see Luis take the desperate step that sees Fran being sent to Tranquillity Valley. It’s very effectively done, utilising hand-held cameras to get close to the action and creating an extremely claustrophobic effect.

The colourfully kinetic opening scenes are totally at odds with what follows. After being violently bundled into a van, Fran finds himself in the correctional facility. Immediately, the tone of the film changes. Colourful sets and costumes are replaced by sombre monochrome, straight lines replace soft furnishings, the music shifts down several gears, and a more fearful feeling enters the previously indomitable Fran’s eyes. The lighting is stark – all warmth has been drained from proceedings.

Life in the institution is brutal and non-conformity is not permitted. Everything is strictly regulated – the settings are almost always symmetrical – the dull clothing and shaved heads of the boys make them look like carbon copies of one another. It’s an extremely effective shift from the cosy, consequence free lifestyle Fran lived previously. Although things get much, much worse.

There are some extremely uncomfortable scenes of beatings and torture. These are not particularly graphic – the true horror here often comes from the close-up reactions of the boys as they bear witness to their friends’ punishments. It’s to director Gimenez’s credit that he chose this way of shooting potentially controversial events.

The younger stars of Lock-up give particularly fine performances. Sadly, what the film lacks is a real emotional centre. Fran is not a character with whom it’s easy to sympathise, whatever he’s been through. As such, the film is one which needs to be watched with a sense of emotional detachment – placing the viewer outside the action looking in. To have drawn the audience further into emotional journey of Fran, in particular, would have been of great benefit – Kubrick managed to make Alex DeLarge a sympathetic character, and Gimenez would have been well served to take a leaf out of the master’s book.

Other problems arise in attempts to create a convincing subplot to run alongside the main narrative. A half-cooked romance between Luis and a fellow inmate’s mother fails to convince entirely. Still worse is a totally misguided fancy-dress party which jars enormously and ought to have been completely removed in the editing process.

Lock-up certainly has some interesting ideas and contains some powerful scenes. Sadly, it seems slightly confused about the point it wants to make and fails to create enough characters engaging enough to really empathise with. As the film runs out of steam and dribbles towards its unsatisfactory ending, it’s hard not to see it as a missed opportunity.