#horrors almost

"On a Chain" (2025, UK, Poland)

As soon as the credits appear, the first thing you want to talk about is Stockholm syndrome, the ethics and morality [or rather immorality] of the chosen methods of re-education. But if you wait a bit, another theme comes to the fore, the root cause of everything — society's indifference to human life.

It is from this indifference and lack of interest that parents' indifference to children is formed. And as a result, children begin to do unimaginable things to attract attention. Destructive behavior of young people is a kind of protest against the desensitization of society. And if we proceed from this position, then conditional vandalism does not always mean one hundred percent evil and hatred. It also turns out to be a companion to loneliness and despair.

And at this moment interesting questions arise. Where does someone else's freedom begin? And if it violates someone's rights, does another person have the right to restrict the freedom of the violator? Although a more specific question, "can one put another on a chain for his re-education and the good of society," probably sounds the same as the question, "is it possible to beat children so that they understand better." Especially if everything is done with good intentions. Here I want to add another question — "can a prison with cruel treatment of prisoners re-educate anyone" [if we are talking about minor and medium crimes].
In general, after watching, there remain many debatable questions, to which there seem to be no correct answers. But the position of people [hypothetical] will tell you a lot about these people.

I would say that "On a Chain" is a mirror film reflecting the decay of modern consumer society, where values are so distorted that permissiveness turns not into good, but into evil. But not because these values are supposedly based on evil, but simply because people do not understand the measure, cannot cope and lose control. They proceed from good, but give birth to evil.

It was an interesting viewing. This, of course, is not a horror at all, but a psychological drama where everyone is deeply traumatized. And we, the viewers, can only guess how broken these people are, since they decided to do such a thing. There are no unambiguous positive heroes here, but that does not prevent us from feeling sympathy.

#reviews