Sorry, this movie sucks

Boring

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

This series was created years before I was even born, and somehow I had never heard about it before, but scrolling down the IMDb TV-list made me curious about its high ranking... So I watched all episodes, in sequence, and well... It was definitely ahead of time, using modern devices and ideas (apart from fighting scenes), but at present, having seen hundreds of films and series from 1960-70ies, I often felt that I was entering a world where Kubrick and James Bond creators were somewhere together and eating magic mushrooms :) I don't argue, it was all catchy to follow, in spite of a few predictabilities and trivial solutions, and the ideas behind and beyond were definitely worth pondering. Main male cast is distinct as well, beginning with Patrick McGoohan as The Prisoner / Number Six, females spend less time on screen and they are often typical beauty icons of that time.Well, it is impossible to provide a uniform overview of The Prisoner, but I can imagine strong feelings it created at that time. I personally have always liked London and it was pleasant to watch hundreds, not thousands of cars in its streets... Life goes on, but the atmosphere has preserved.

In ARRIVAL, the initial episode of THE PRISONER (Patrick McGoohan's brilliant teleseries), our hero learns when he hands in his resignation that there's no such thing in his profession (he's apparently a secret agent). He's gassed unconscious and later wakes to find himself a prisoner in The Village, an idyllic NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUResque little hamlet. When he walks into a small shop looking for a map, the proprietor peers at him through fingers that form a "lens" and says, "Be seeing you." The implication is clear: The Prisoner is under constant surveillance. His designation turns out to be "Number Six." He meets Number Two, who informs him that (like the members of the current U.$. $urveillance $tate), "One likes to know Everything." Six explodes: "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered! My life is my own!" To which Two calmly responds, "Is it?" During a tour of The Village, Six sees another man trying to escape; the man is chased (and eventually overpowered) by a large white balloon ("Rover," the surreal guard dog of The Village- and one of the greatest Fantasy constructs ever conceived). When a new Number Two arrives, Six tells him: "I'm on OUR side." Two refers to Six AS "Six." "I am not a number," he counters: "I am a person." "Six of one, half a dozen of another," the New Two grins. THE PRISONER remains one of the high water marks in televised Science Fiction/Fantasy. If only one in a hundred were THIS good...

The best ever produced TV show. The most copied TV show around the world. The most dreamlike, most symbolic TV show, while being very realistic. The most scandalous TV show. The TV show in the success never seen. The most relevant TV show. The most disturbing TV show ever made. The most current TV show; in the theme concerning an advanced dehumanization more true than never. The most enigmatic TV show. The most Kafka's TV show. The most suggestive TV show. The TV show which knew how to see farther than its time,period.We can go further with the qualifiers of these episodes which tell the eviction of a secret agent on an island and inside a village the numerous opportunities, which is a kind of golden prison, on which however nobody have ever escaped; and then his attempts as numbers 2 - all more deceitful some than the others - try to extort him precious information helped by diverse threats, while continues the life of the village and it while number 6 cross other numbers, those sometimes very close to him.An enormous cult in any case.

I first saw The Prisoner when it was originally broadcast. I was about 6 at the time, and I remember telling myself, "OK...I don't "get" this because I'm a kid." I loved the Village, the clothes, and in a bizarre way, Rover. But I knew I didn't understand it. I did catch on to the basic messages of "man as just another number in society" and "Who are the bad guys? Are the "good guys" the bad guys? Who's in charge here, really?" Having with much older, social-activist siblings probably helped; but I must admit I watched it because they did. In 2004 I had the opportunity to see the series again, and I thought, "Now's my chance to see what this was really about." I watched it with my European husband. I still didn't "get" it, and neither did he. Oh, the anti-totalitarian message was still there...very much of its time and place...but it was just as bizarre and confusing as the first time. I never did figure out the significance of the penny-farthing bicycle that appears in sculpture, paintings and pins on people's clothing...but then I don't think you're supposed to. As for McGoohan's over-the-top acting...well, the less said about that, the better. Styles change with the decades, but even so...ugh. You don't *have* to be high to watch The Prisoner...but it probably helps.