Lion's Den (Lionera)

Guardian“Like a very, very, very classy feature-length episode of Prisoner...” It is a gritty and heartfelt film, but Trapero admirers may be wondering at the relative absence of the subtlety and shades of meaning that characterised films like Born and Bred. The taste of sweat and fear is, however, real enough...

The Telegraph“A desperate vitality...” Real inmates are extras, real cells provide the scenery: it has the desperate vitality of something barely made-up. Argentine director Pablo Trapero takes us behind the bars of a women’s prison, where the pregnant Julia is confined...

The Independent“Creates a genuine moral drama...” The depiction of violence is less harrowing than it tends to be in male prison movies, though it's absolutely unflinching about the squalor, and the monotony...

The Times“Gusman gives a performance of nerve-shredding urgency...” Motherhood is filtered through the prism of desperation to keep her son by her side. The curious microcosm of the mothers and babies wing in a sprawling penitentiary is captured with a vivid honesty...

Little White Lies“An unqualified success...” Enjoyment is an inadequate description for this sobering and rigorously intelligent look at motherhood and incarceration. Martina Gusman’s central performance alone would be worthy of memory, but there’s so much more to cherish about this film...

Time Out film“Trapero’s militantly unsentimental chronicle of life...” 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. Martina Gusman delivers a magnificently understated turn as Julia...

Total Film “A detached but intense character portrait...” 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...

Electric Sheep“Trapero never offers the audience any easy answers...” We never really discover the truth behind the murder, and are left to decide whether a mother’s love for her child is more important than an innocent child’s right to freedom and a life outside prison...

Variety“Situated somewhere between neo-realist study and women in prison pic...” An intense sense of claustrophobia is created even before incarceration, with close-ups filling the screen from the opening shot. Editing too is precise and fluid, while clever use of songs, rather than incidental music, gives pic some jolt...

Empire“Gusman wisely eschews easy sympathy...” 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...