The White Room
The idea for the film came from my previous involvement with voluntary work, which brought me into contact with prisoners and ex-prisoners, some of whom were serving severe penalties of long-term imprisonment and solitary confinement.
– El Glinoer
A woman locked up in a cell, and deprived of any outside stimulus, begins to fantasise about the woman in the next cell, to the extent that fantasy and reality are no longer separate entities. Her fantasising may be interpreted as a refusal to conform to authoritarian discipline. The question of madness is very much part of the film – is she mad, or is it the outside world with its arbitrary set of rules and regulations that is unbalanced.
The film is critical of internment, stating forcefully that the prison system does not work, and looks at areas of mental health and isolation as well as sexuality.
Description source: Cinenova Catalogue (1994). Edited by Kate Norrish. Editorial committee: Elaine Burrows, Liane Harris, Helen de Witt