Critic Reviews

Guillermo Nieto's hand-held camerawork mimics Julia's nervous energy and keeps the audience locked up along with her, working in symbiosis with Federico Esquerro's forcefully realistic sound design.

It has the desperate vitality of something barely made-up.

Part meticulous character study, part hyperrealist drama, Trapero’s film is as interested in documenting how such an institution functions on a day-to-day basis as he is in presenting the joys and pains of female cohabitation in such a confined space.

The dimly lit, exquisitely composed cinematography, by Guillermo Nieto, adds to the draw of this highly recommended movie.

Although it is not a comedy, Lion’s Den is suffused with sense of life lived in the present. Even the grimmest moments are not exploited to instill fear and loathing.

Unfortunately the movie is also a bit too long, and for long stretches it's about as entertaining as, well, a long stretch. Still, if this were one of those movie-review TV shows, I'd have to give Lion's Den a (tiny) thumb's up, for its aura of authenticity and for the ferocity of Gusman's commitment.

At its most interesting when it shows the lives of women and children prisoners, the film has the feel of a movie-of-the-week cliché when it returns to Julia's improbable crime.

Frustratingly, the film tells us little about the crime itself and the denouement is a little unconvincing. The taste of sweat and fear is, however, real enough.

Too many generic tropes for this downbeat, detached melodrama to convince as a work of social realism but a strong central performance and convincing depiction of the compartmentalisation of Argentina's women.

Gusman is sullenly magnificent; you can’t fault the movie’s realism either, shot in an actual prison and soberly reflecting some acute social problems. But the movie’s muggy pace makes you feel that you’ve served every day of Julia’s sentence with her.