There are characters named Grace and Joy. The main villain is in a war against the Christian God, while the hero is named after a god of Norse mythology. Thematically-beyond mazes-religion and trees are huge motifs. One is thematic, the other is…well…for lack of a better word, pretentious. There are two more layers that make Prisoners an even deeper kind of cinematic dive. Meaning it’s on the viewer to actively complete the few missing pieces of the puzzle. Denis Villeneuve and company accomplished this by placing key backstory and exposition details throughout the movie without ever having a scene that clearly ties them all together. The seemingly simple progress of the story is an artistic choice to create the sense of an itch you can’t quite scratch, that there’s more going on than you may have realized. This is done in order to have Prisoners become a narrative maze. Instead, it purposefully scatters important details throughout the story, without chronological context, meaning it’s easy to forget them or not connect them the way we should connect them. Prisoners could have presented information in the way most movies do-stacking details in a chronological, linear fashion that’s digestible and allows viewers to go from a place of total ignorance to a place of complete understanding. That idea of the maze goes beyond the characters to the structure of the story. Whether that’s the death of a child, the loss of faith in God, discovering a parent who has committed suicide, murdering a murderer, having your child abducted, torturing someone you know is guilty but won’t confess, or a high-stakes job where lives are on the line. Prisoners puts that concept onto how people struggle to work through and escape from their traumas. The whole concept of a maze is that people become lost in the convolutions and complications of the structure. Mazes end up being a bigger deal than you’d probably expect. But the movie as a whole is an examination of the kinds of prisons people find themselves in-physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. The main story of Prisoners is the kidnapping of two young girls. Does Loki discover Keller in the hole or not?.Who was the guy in the priest’s basement?.Why didn’t Alex confess to the police or Keller?.
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