Outside the walls of Gilboa Prison, located in the southwest of the Sea of Galilee (1), six Palestinian prisoners stood in front of a tunnel, shedding their families' misery, and wresting their freedom that had been forcibly deprived for a long time.
This happened at about 1:30 a.m. on Monday, September 7, 2021. That moment was preceded by an unknown time, during which the prisoners, in their confinement, resolved to escape through a hole they dug at the bottom of the prison toilet, to cross on the promised day. The sewer line next to their cell (2)(3).
And when they came out of the ground, they found themselves towards the southern area of the prison leading to the bushes.
6 Palestinian prisoners escape through a tunnel under the heavily fortified Gilboa prison
The idea of escaping from prison has always occupied the minds of prisoners of reality, literature and cinema, and possessed their ideas, to unite the scene of the escape of Palestinian prisoners with another scene in the movie "The Shawshank Redemption", written and directed by Frank Darabont based on a short novel called "Rita Hayworth and Salvation". From The Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King.
In particular, everyone was moved by the scene of the prison warden in the Shawshank movie, when he stood in front of the hole made by Andy Dufferin (Tim Robbins) in the wall to escape, which is somewhat similar to the hole that the occupation authorities found near Gilboa Prison, both of which were a sign of the failure of the unjust system On the one hand, and a reference to freedom on the other.
From the movie "Shawshank"
Behind The Shawshank Redemption
In the film, banker Dufresne is charged with the murder of his wife and boyfriend.
He is held for a wrongful act at Shawshank Redemption and sentenced to life imprisonment.
As he enters the place, he feels a sense of constriction, as if the bars are resting from their high altitude on the prisoners, causing a deep pain.
Inside, the pale colors tint the corners and people, the sun is shackled, and nothing escapes from its rays except by stealth, while darkness predominates, which symbolizes mourning and pain.
Prison creates and controls the context of the film as it does its inmates, choosing Andy to focus on him more than any other prisoner throughout the story.
Events happen like murders, to convey the message that all things are hopeless.
But we are aware of a hidden hope that is tamed by some, like old Brooks, who carries in his pocket a small crow.
Andy is a quiet man with an aura of mystery, we see him with his friend Alice Reed (Morgan Freeman), who takes care of smuggling anything and he has been twenty years when they met, but we can't get into Andy's outsider.
When he is subjected to blows and intrigues and is imprisoned alone, the camera does not focus on his wounds or bruises like the rest of his fellow prisoners, but it sets aside space for him to vent about them without a sound sometimes, turning the enormous pain into a deep meaning.
Prison and the meaning of life
Austrian physician Viktor Frankl, founder of the School of Meaning Therapy
The Austrian doctor, "Victor Frankl", the founder of the school of therapy with meaning, believes that a person's adherence to a thought, a memory, or an overwhelming love may give him a meaning to his life that pushes him to continue, stirs his feelings so that they do not slacken, Frankl says: "This meaning added to life is what makes a person able to Facing his pain that he cannot repel, when a person finds that his destiny is suffering, he must accept his pain and suffering as if it were a task imposed on him, and it is a unique and distinct task. And he adds: "In fact, he must admit that he is alone and unique in this universe even in his suffering, and no one can rid him of his suffering or suffer in his place, and his opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burdens and troubles" (4) (5).
Frankl was imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps, another place and time trampled on Andy, and in a third place and time we can see the Gilboa prison hexagon and their comrades.
Everyone had their distant visions of freedom, Andy imagined that one day he would erect a hotel on the ocean shore, discern his design, and perhaps glimpse the precursors of what he was determined to do, if we looked at a scene of him in the prison library and realized that the novel "The Count of Monte Cristo" by the French writer Alexandre Dumas is almost the only novel he's recombining for his friends, telling them it's about a prison escape, and when they make jokes, his face retains an expression of seriousness.
The Count of Monte Cristo is a novel by the French writer Alexandre Dumas.
The characters in the film intersect with Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh's painting "The Training of Prisoners".
"Van Gogh" derived his painting from the work of the French painter Gustave Dore "Neugate Prison Training Ground" (6).
In Van Gogh's painting, prisoners walk slowly in a circle, the guard watches the prisoners, which means that there is no way to break the circle or break out of it.
Two people appear seemingly indifferent to what is happening, to the point that one of them turns away.
The painting gives a glimpse into the life of the prison and its dark walls that have no limit in height, to imagine that they are piercing the clouds, narrowing the space and not expanding, so that the work gives you the feeling that the walls will be applied to them, and that the repetition is permanent and the torment is eternal.
"Training Prisoners" by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh
Perhaps that circle represents another image of Sisyphus, the legendary hero whose destinies drove him to forever roll a rock to the top of a mountain, as a reward for deceiving the gods.
If the heroes of the film are far from ideal, and the vast majority of them have undoubtedly sinned, then do prisons become for them as if they are meant to burden them with regret every day in the form of those rocks that they are carrying?
Perhaps that is the remorse that an indignant Reed finally admitted at the third session of the parole board.
Salvation song
Andy resisted ferociously throughout his imprisonment, accepting his share of the Sisyphus' portable pebbles, but he did not stop secretly trying to break free.
In order not to lose himself, he clings to a connection with the outside world, so for years he wrote letters to the state senate in order to allocate a sum of money for the prison library, and for this he also immersed himself in various ways, and did not cease to practice his hobby of polishing stones.
Salvation came in the film in the form of a few minutes, as Andy took advantage of the presence of the officer in the toilet, closed the door on him, and placed on the phonograph a CD of the opera “The Marriage of Figaro” by Mozart with a female voice before broadcasting it on loudspeakers, in a direct use of power against the jailer (7). 8).
At that exact moment, time stopped stunned and stopped flowing, everyone fell to a stalemate after the beauty surprised them, like a waterfall of water descends on a draining spring, the melodies sent a magical effect on the minds and souls of prisoners, especially those who had not seen the world outside the prison walls for a long time. Reid says, "I have no idea to this day what these two Italian ladies were singing about. The truth is, I don't want to know, it's better to leave some things unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something sweet that can't be put into words, Something to make your heart ache for. I tell you these voices rose higher and farther than anyone in a gray place would dare dream. It was as if some fine bird was flapping in our little drab cage, and for a short moment, every other man in the Shawshank felt free."
In that passage, the opera spoke of a plot by Countess Rosina and her maid, Susanna, to deceive the Count, which Andy is about to do with the warden, the latter having liquidated his friend Tommy and the only proof of his innocence, in order to keep him in charge of Warden Norton's accounts.
The film then takes the curve of what Andy later talks about: "There's something inside of you that they can't reach, they can't touch. It's hope," the hope that accompanies freedom (9).
Escape from and to freedom
On the other hand, old prisoner Brooks is frightened and sad after being ordered to be released, and almost kills his friend so he can stay in prison.
He took out fifty years of prison from his life, and when he was forced out, we find him thinking about how to return, which is exactly what invades Red's mind after his release in the final sequels.
Psychologist and humanist philosopher Erich Fromm explains their feelings in his book "Escape from Freedom", saying that freedom attracts us when we feel that it is out of reach, but as soon as we sip it, we realize that it is a responsibility.
We are afraid of what is to come, we are anxious with uncertainty, when our lack of freedom makes us feel certain and comfortable.
That is why many are making choices to root out this anxiety.
Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm
Fromm summarizes these choices in authoritarianism, whether in the case of domination or submission, the authoritarian structure removes choices and freedom from the individual and relieves anxiety. Fromm also talks about mechanistic conformity, which occurs in the absence of an authoritarian regime, in which individuals adhere to the norms of the group, and this becomes the new power of the individual that relieves the anxiety associated with freedom. Fromm also tells us that some people who do not have an authoritarian regime or a collectivist base often self-destruct, which can manifest in low self-esteem or more extreme behaviors such as crime, addiction, or even suicide (10). The old man, he might have been on Red's mind too, but it was a promise he made earlier to Andy that kept him going crazy.
The film ends with a wide shot on the ocean, in which the two friends meet after Andy escaped from prison, during which he took twenty years, during which he dug with a rock hammer a tunnel outside his cell, and traveled miles through the sewage, as did the six Palestinian prisoners.
But it goes beyond the mere similarity in the case of escape and the sewer opening, where these six, like Andy, had a real case, he did no crime to deserve imprisonment, and they find in defending their homeland and liberating it from the occupier an honor that does not deserve imprisonment, and from that central point we fall into Andy's love, and we fall in love with the Six POWs the same way.
If one of them had been a murderer who escaped from his prison we might not have loved him that way, because something inside us tends to justice, and gets excited when it is yanked out in an unexpected way.
The reason for our admiration for these tales is that they, in one way or another, encompass our entire life, to please you that whatever form your prison, the job you detest, or the relationship that drains and wastes your energy, and whatever your jailer looks like, freedom will remain within you, and at some point in your life, it will arrive. Finally to that breezy beach.
This may take some time, but you will get there someday.
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Sources:
Manhunt Underway After 6 Palestinians Escape Israeli Prison
Israeli officials admit prison design 'failure' after six Palestinians break out in Shawshank Redemption-style escape by crawling through pre-made tunnel they found under a sink
Israel searches for 6 Palestinians after rare prison break
“Treatment with meaning” .. Can a person find salvation in his mistakes?
Man and the Search for Meaning, Transcendence of Self as a Human Phenomenon, Victor Emil Frankl.
Translation: Abdel Maqsoud Abdel Karim
Prisoners Exercising
Classical music: opera song in “The Shawshank Redemption” movie
Opera Meets Film: What the Iconic Scene From 'The Shawshank Redemption' Says About Opera's Greatest Power
?Who composed the opera song that Andy DuFresne plays over the loud speakers in the film "The Shawshank Redemption"
Review of the book (Fear of Freedom): Contemporary Man Between Illusion of Freedom and Anxiety of Individualism
Escape From Freedom, Erich Fromm