Beautiful Prison – weird, wonderful & a bit of a mess

Alright… so last night I finally sat down, armed with a huge kopp Zoégas coffee (Skånerost please!) and kanelbullar from Pressbyrån, to catch this little oddball of a movie, Beautiful Prison. It’s directed by Joel Vallie – not exactly Spielberg-famous, but definitely someone who’s got some quirks up his sleeve.

Okay, honestly, when I saw the title Beautiful Prison, I was a bit skeptical. Like, don’t these filmmakers ever run out of vague poetic names? As my grandmother Inga always said: “Låter lite pretto, eller hur?” (Sounds a bit pretentious, right?) But you know, sometimes pretto can work. Sometimes.

The film revolves around Ben, who after an accident wakes up with strange abilities (typical Thursday, right?). And what’s cool is this guy’s played by Kaelin Stockwell, who isn’t exactly Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise, but is bloody convincing. And no less than Kristen Barrett appears – not her most recognized role, but still gives a depth that surprised me.

Anyway, a funny thing happened: Ben’s surreal experiences, kinda trapped between reality and fantasy, reminded me of that one time back in ’94, when I accidentaly got locked overnight inside Svea Bio – those nightmares I had about talking popcorn machines still haunt me. So yeah, the trippy sequences resonated strangely well!

But is the movie perfect? Nah. Halfway through, the plot kinda loses itself and I felt like shouting “Hallå, vakna nu!” at the screen. It’s like the filmmakers tried a bit too hard to impress; messy editing and random detours didn’t exactly help.

Still, despite all this, Beautiful Prison stuck with me after credits rolled. Weird little films like these are always exciting to discover. Maybe it’s a film you watch once, then endlessly argue about it with your mates afterward. It’s kinda like assistirng Melodifestivalen – confusing, strange but somehow you can’t stop watching.

Give this one a chance, med lite tålamod (with a little patience), and let me know your thoughts, alright?

watch the full movie on CinemaOneMovies on YouTube

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