Prison - a world of its own, as is generally known. But the microcosm revealed on Rikers Island in New York, with its tracts reserved for gays, pregnant women, lunatics, is even more of a world apart. Alpert flashes his inimitable spotlight on the conditions inside : brutality, crime, tenderness, inquisitions, hopes, drug problems, day-to-day life, extreme situations. Nobody seems to notice Alpert or his camera - the inmates of the island hardly care who films them or what gets filmed.
A riveting document of an absurd institution, and probably one of the best films ever made about jail.