Alone in Four Walls - Alexandra Westmeier

I made myself comfortable in bed, propped up against the headboard by two pillows, surrounded by walls where the pictures hang. The wall light is right across from where I'm sitting. To the left is a small window and a curtain. It was warm and secure.

The documentary began and it was some time before we see adults coming into the frames. I met Lyosha who just got to there, the juvenile detention centre, chronicling his new life there. He was sobbing in between the interview and said, "I just want to go home, that's all".

There's Tolya who got sent in there for murder; who spoke on his life and his wishes when he got out. Like him, many others echoed that they wish to lead a good life when they get out. The scene then changed to a scene quite similar to the ones I see on TV except that the weather is cold and windy Russian climate with rolling hills in the distance.

Parents of these boys have mixed feelings about them but they look sad and I think they really wanted them back. When I say parents, it means father and mother but in the interview, it's either the father or the mother that was interviewed. Not the ones we see often in other films/documentaries where mom and dad sat on a couch next to a table with, maybe, flowers and a beautiful wallpapered wall behind. No, the parents aren't dressed in suits and mom doesn't put on make ups nor braid their hair. She just simply tie up their hair and don something to protect against the elements.

The boys are a precocious lot. They speak in a way reflecting adults and if I didn't look at the subtitles (the language's Russian) the words they use reflect their maturity. Perhaps life brought out that thinking? I can't answer that.

I also meet Vitya, an adorable guy with puffy cheeks you'd want to pinch. According to him, the medicine he got from a mental institution gave him that puffy cheeks. Like others, I could see the little boy in him. His, when he was at the dentist's chair and when she was about to extract a tooth, he turned away and cried; reminiscence of myself. A difference is I know mom is either by my side or outside the room. The dentist (assuming that she is although she look more like a nurse from the Health Ministry, Malaysia) then played the role of mom, talking to him and then extracting the tooth and then soothing the poor boy - chin on his head and her wrist on his face.

Poignant.

Who's to blame? The system? Parents? The boys? I don't know. Everyone maybe? But I think most of the responsibility rests on the parents. It's true you have to work your posterior off but take some time off and read to your child, not in some place where you drink away and then staggering home to beat up your wife and child.

The best part of the film? When I see smiles on their face. Every once in a while, I'd see that smile; embarrassed, happy, retrospective and some hopeful. Towards the end, the boys sang Russian Lad and I'm sure they know what the wordings meant (I'll look up the English translation shortly). Not as nice as Alexei Goman but original. At the end, I see each of them smile again as the camera go from left to right. To those watching this part, would they have known these are the faces of juvenile detainees sent there for various crimes?

Everyone sees in them only criminals, and forgets that they are children. Children who never had a childhood.

Some of the inmates we meet are serving time for theft, some for murder - but filmmaker Alexandra Westmeier lets us spend enough time with them to see beyond their hard man exteriors to the scared boys within. She also provides glimpses of their home lives, and we begin to realise that, for these children, prison is often an easier place to be.
For the first time in their young lives, they no longer have to fight for their daily existence;
they can simply be what they are--children.

-Youtube video (above) info

The sun sets and I see the following:

91% of these children will end up behind bars.
This time in a prison for adults.