R

This hard-hitting drama, an anthropological study of life in a Danish prison, portrays R who has been sentenced to prison for violence. He’s insistent on staying out of harm’s way and in doing so he is faced with the challenge of navigating through prison culture with its notions of honour, hidden agendas and contracts.

Rune is a young Dane who has been sentenced for a serious violent crime and finds himself in an old, heavily guarded prison. He is determined to keep out of sight as much as possible and out of the battle for power, but on the first day it becomes clear he has no option. There is no escaping the merciless prison culture with its strict pecking order, violent codes of honour and secret contracts. Thanks to his dexterity, he manages to get a privileged position for himself.

“Doing away with the timeworn clichés of the prison-drama genre, Danish directors Tobias Lindholm and Michael Noer take us behind bars, Dogmestyle, without a birdman, without a great escape and worlds away from any thought of redemption. Shot in a recently shut-down penitentiary with real ex-convicts and ex-guards cast in their respective roles, R is not so much about a stringent plot but the experience of being in prison.”

The Hollywood Reporter