Random Prisoners Analysis

   The reason why the movie is called prisoners refers not only to the confines of physical prison, but psychological prison as well. We observe throughout the course of this movie that the characters themselves revolve around a morality and sense of godliness that ceases to exist as they lose things around them and begin to spiral out of control. The most obvious example of this mind-prison would be the children, Joy and Anna, and where / how they are kept. This is a prison in physical terms - It confines the children and does not allow them to escape. However, the depth of the film explores a psychological prison - one of the mind. 

We notice throughout the film that none of the characters that have experienced trauma find themselves expressing it. It would have been extremely helpful for the children, Bob Taylor, or even Alex to be expressive about their experience with Holly and her husband. Additionally, Keller’s lack of expression towards his father’s death, Holly’s lack of expression towards her son’s death, Keller’s wife’s lack of sanity as a result of her daughter’s disappearance, and Joy’s mother’s lack of morality as a result of Joy's disappearance, are all examples of people who have experienced a certain trauma and did not express it. These are all examples of prisons inside one’s mind - not allowing them to escape the harsh truth they had to endure and confining them to secrecy.

Beginning with Keller - his wife’s decline, his son’s confrontation, his drinking habits, his kidnapping and torture of Alex, etc. are all examples of his pain manifesting itself. In other words, his prison is building around his core self, causing a kind of Zimbardo effect that forces him to cause more pain around him. His mental prison starts with his daughter’s disappearance. Symbolically, his daughter’s disappearance represents itself in a physical prison for Keller as well, as we can see he is trapped inside “the maze” with nothing but the emergency whistle - something found by the children, then lost, then found again by Keller. It is likely that the whistle represents a call for help - not only a physical way to escape the hole he is in, but an escape of his mental prison that would otherwise block him from accepting help or sharing his thoughts. Had he presented the police with the things Alex had said, they would probably be able to deduce the killer faster than he did. However, due to his inability to escape, and keeping in mind the first thing his wife said to him - “you were supposed to protect us”, he takes on full responsibility and thus ends up in the hole meant for his daughter - showing how he had taken the responsibility for her and thus taken her place. Keller’s wife is trapped in her own mind because of the trauma she has endured due to her daughter’s disappearance. She refuses to take medication to help herself and just wants to sit in the pain she is experiencing. 

To backtrack - “the maze” is a key term when regarding trauma and the mind. Psychological abusers tend to turn mind maps into mind mazes - not allowing the victims to truly realize what happened to them, making them unable to discuss the events of their trauma. The victims of these such mind mazes tend to try and find the core of the maze - find out what is in the middle as opposed to finding what is on the other side. Bob Taylor is a representation of this theory - he realizes that the only way out of the maze is the other side, that he cannot ever find the core of the maze and that the only way to find peace is to let himself go. He tries tirelessly to recreate his experience in order to understand it and live it again to re-examine his development. However, he learns through experience that he will never cease to obsess over this such maze, and only with death will he ever truly escape the prison of his mind.

As children, Anna and Joy were incredibly innocent and naive. You can observe them talking to their pet hamster and wondering why it didn’t talk back. At the end of the movie however, you notice how Anna had nothing to say to Loki. This is not due to contempt or rudeness or dislike as we observe her saying goodbye to him politely. This is because she has developed her own mind maze. She has her own mind prison that she is having trouble coming to terms with and escaping. Thus, not allowing her to speak of the events that conspired and forcing her to secrecy just like Bob Taylor and Alex. 

Alex’s mind prison is not just that of the abuse he has faced at the hands of Holly and her husband, it begins at his lack of personhood. His own individuality was stripped from him as he was forced to become their son that died before - Alex. He struggled to escape - not only the physical prison of the house he stayed at, but the psychological effects of being “Alex”. Having to aid in their crimes and being privy to the same things that conspired in his own kidnapping. Therefore, trapped in his mind, he doesn’t speak. He acts out on animals and withholds information - acting as any victim would. You can see for most of the movie Alex is drugged. His eyes are not open most of the time and he doesn’t react to things. In the shower box, audience observes as he screams and finally gives up important information about the whereabouts of the missing children. This is because not only is he free of the drug prison, he is free of the “Alex” prison. He doesn’t have to be the son of kidnappers, he is, as he says, “not Alex”. He continues by saying “I am not Alex. I just wanted to play. He never came. I waited for him. He never came”. Most likely when Alex was abducted, he had absolutely no knowledge of who Alex was. He was old enough to know he was Barry but could not understand for the most part why suddenly he was Alex. In the beginning, we see him struggling to write “his name”. This is in part because he is drugged up, but also because it is not his name. He is writing slowly so as to not mess up and recall the name he was told to memorize as a child. Likely, when he refers to a “He”, he is talking about the real son that they lost. He most likely waited for the Alex that they were so desperate for, and in the meantime played along for his own survival. Surely, 5 year old Barry waited for the real Alex to free him from the prison that Holly had trapped him in - the confines of being “Alex”. 

Holly’s prison began at the death of her son. Her motive for kidnapping and murdering children was that she “waged a war against God”. As you see in the beginning, there is a theme of Godly adults losing their faith in God. She feels as though God took her son from her, and so she tries to defy him by defying her own nature and instinct that God himself had created for her - motherhood. In doing the opposite of motherhood, she is defying nature, and thus, defying God. Funnily enough, it is God in the end that leads to her demise. Her husband was one of the sole reasons that they could kidnap and murder - however, when he regained a faith in God and confessed to his sins, he was sentenced to “prison”, a prison of faith that acts as a paradox. Surely detectives had visited the Priest’s home, surely there were opportunities for Holly’s husband to escape, but it wasn’t meant to be. Keller escaping, however, was. A small tangent going off of this point - Holly became vengeful and almost evil after her son disappeared which the audience regularly finds as abhorrent and disgusting. However, the whole point of her kidnapping other children the way that she does is to turn other parents into the same thing she became. Keller is the prime example of this. He provides extreme pain to an innocent boy in order to reconcile the pain he feels for the disappearance of his daughter. Similar to Holly - every child’s abduction is a step closer to defying God - Keller finds every torture a step closer to finding Anna. Loki is also a large example of this - turning into another person almost because of the trauma this case entertains. 

ANOTHER TANGENT. The snakes represent the evil. Adam and Eve were led by the snake to become imperfect and bad. the snakes embody the chaos that Holly and her husband want to feed to the families of the abducted children, similar to the chaos that they felt when their child was similarly taken from them without a trace by God. 

Joy’s parents are trapped in a prison of morality. You can see as her father gets roped into the torture of Alex, he becomes further and further from morality. However, he comes back from it. In doing so, he brings his wife, who finds herself spiraling down a halfway point between Keller and her husband - deciding that she would do nothing to stop or encourage Keller. She battles against morality constantly - at first, she decides to free Alex, but then convinces her husband to keep him imprisoned. She is escaping the confines of morality and entering the mind maze of justice - in sacrificing morality and faith for violence, she is unable to connect with her morally righteous husband and defies him. This will most likely result in a rift between the two. 

Loki’s prison is that of this case in that he becomes a slave to it. He dedicates all of his time to it and even suffers many injuries due to it. He escapes this prison when rescuing Anna.