King of Devil's Island

In the U.S., Alcatraz used to serve as a prison known to the inmates as "The Rock," a place where criminals were sent in a boat, the island from which few had ever been known to escape. In Norway, until 1957, criminal children, even those committing relatively minor crimes were sent to an Island Prison on the island of Batsoy, another dismal isolation from which there was supposedly no escape. "The King of Devil's Island" as another young man arrives after committing a murder, consigned to the prison's special diet of silence and discipline, work amid dismally spartan conditions. The new inmate, after the usual give and take with more dominant prisoners, most of them young teens, manages to find himself a friend, sharing his plan to be the first to attempt a getaway.

Animosity between the inmates and those in charge, one of them an unregenerate pedophile and another taking money that should go to the welfare of the prisoners, develops quickly, and a steady intensity is constantly building--not with the buckets of profanity that pepper an American prison film, but a series of darker, psychological twists evolving from our knowledge of many of the young men involved.

Although in color, the atmosphere is dark, the skies seldom blue, the woods dark, the walks snowy: it is a moody film, but never lets the tension loosen much. I found it gripping and intense, building to a smashing final scene: not necessarily conclusive, but totally satisfying. The acting is universally excellent, the underlying music score appropriate without being intrusive. This well-made film was fully worthy of my time.