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Released in 1978 (review written August 2, 2023)
Rating: 9/10 I was planning my birthday party since I would like to invite my brother and his family for it, and I wanted to watch a movie with them, something really good that I love a lot. What came to mind was Midnight Express which I hold close in my heart because of my experience in the group home. Upon rewatching, I can't do it. The movie is too personal and hard to explain for people who have never felt what I have. Who knows, though. If you have ever felt trapped, like you were backed up against the wall like an animal, perhaps you'd understand. Ryan O'Neal is a great actor in this one, and technically better than Barry Lyndon. His goodbyes to his dad, his courtroom speech when they sentence him to life, his revenge against Rifki, his going with the flow of the lunatic circle... have I been to Turkish prison or its equivalent? No. But the emotions are a universal. Men weren't made to live under a thumb. We are free agents, beings with dignity and respect, and the movie speaks to anyone who has had that taken from them by force. 
What also occurred to me is that many people live in a prison of one kind or another. My back pain has mostly trapped me to this house, this room, this bed, with hardly any hope of ever leaving it again. Depression is a sort of prison too, where you are your own warden, as is fear. Speaking of fear, think of how I was conditioned. By acting out at school, getting sent to the group home, my freedoms taken, I was conditioned to comply. Obey, do what you're told, stay in line, take your meds, follow the program... I struggled a lot. I rebelled. In the end, I joined the lunatics walking around in a circle to the right. I only went home because 1) I was lucky enough to have a home unlike the foster kids, and 2) they couldn't keep me past the age of 18. I spent my prime years at Milhous Children's Services, and for what? Evil psychiatric medication that was a soft form of lobotomy and sterilization? Coping skills for slaves with a collar on their neck? Like Egwene from The Wheel of Time books, I am NOT A DAMANE.  I will not be collared again. But therein lies the most sinister aspect of this prison system. You trade one prison for the next. I left Milhous only to be trapped at home with my alcoholic dad. It took so much heartbreak and effort to leave and get an apartment. You want another prison? How about World of Warcraft, one of the reasons I was put in the group home in the first place! I lost 1.5 years, age 16.5 to 18, at Milhous, but I also lost age 14 to 16.5 to video games and WoW. Then when I left my dad, I went right back to that familiar, comfortable prison. My Stockholm Syndrome is so great, so powerful, that to this day, I yearn for the comfort of my cell by playing private WoW servers. I still long for the hills and fresh air of Milhous despite the incredible anguish and misery I was put in! I still think about the day I got in a fight with Nathan, the day James Laton beat George so bad that there seemed to be gallons of blood gushng out all over my clothes and bed and walls, the day I was told I couldn't go home when I was promised for no explainable reason. All of my friends, my family, my pets, my home, it was all taken away from me.  And I want to go back still... Don't you see it yet? There's an almost endless series of prisons we're all put in. They tell you to obey and comply, follow the program, under the threat of an even worse prison. They hook you into a series of wires and tubes, creating a virtual prison. We are slaves to the masters of junk food, alcohol, drugs, tobacco. They are the masters of church and state, of wisdom and ignorance, of freedom and oppression. All of politics and the rule of law, for the entire world, is run by them. They claim to own the land, the sea, and even the sky! My only solace is in telling myself that they own nothing, that no one can own it. We're all merely tenants and when the rent is due at the end of our life, you're gonna pay for trashing the place up if you know what I mean. It's my only hope. Of course, for all I know, this series of Matryoshka Doll jailhouses is infinite and the entire planet is a prison. Maybe the gnostics are right, that the demiurge is the warden, and you either end up a Rifki-esque turnkey or you're brutalized and forgotten until your soul is recycled back into the hell world. I've seen excellent evidence that gnosticism is a total fraud, like kabbalah, so I'd like to believe that the world is good and it's the "children of the sea" that make things suck. Anyway, my point is, I can't possibly watch Midnight Express with my family. Besides the awkward gay scenes, it's too meaningful to me to end up with them sitting there, half bored and browsing social media on their phones. I can't blame them. I'm addicted to stupid things as well! A good movie that might be less weird to them is 1977's Sorcerer which is another tense one. Roy Scheider is great in that. As for this being a review of Midnight Express, well... I think one can surmise that I like it and it's good and worth watching. |
