Prisioneros
Overview
Charles and Bruno were once childhood friends. Years later, when a civil war rages in Belgium, they find themselves behind opposing barricades. Fate will bring them face to face again, this time as guard and captive. When the order is given to execute the prisoner, Charles will have to choose between ideology and scruples.
Reygadas has said that upon his first arrival in Europe, he was shocked by the intensity of nationalist feelings that found their horrifying expression in the Balkan wars of the 1990s. By setting his film in a peaceful, Western country, the director wanted to show how the same mechanisms of conflict can come to life in any society, with the same brutality and the same tragic absurdities.