What would a prison be like if there are children in the cell?
The film Miracle in Cell No.7 (2013, dir. Lee Hwan-kyung) tells the story of Yong-gu and his six-year-old daughter Ye-sung’s experience in a prison cell with other criminals. Yong-gu is mentally disabled with only the intelligence of a six-year-old, and he is falsely accused of rape and murder of the police commissioner’s daughter. Although Yong-gu is charged with death penalty, he treats the desperate cell as a friendly environment as he used to do and saves the prison gang leader Yang-ho’s life when the prisoners in another cell attack Yang-ho. As a return, Yang-ho and other cellmates plan to sneak Yong-gu’s daughter into the cell for their reunion.
The first shot when Ye-sung arrives at the cell is the prisoners ripping off the tape of a large snack box. The aerial shot of the box fills the entire frame, and when it first opens, only her cloth is visible. When the camera pushes backwards, Ye-sung’s entire body is revealed. She lies as an infant, tightly confined in the box, and then sits up as a newborn. Ye-sung’s arrival is portrayed as the unboxing of a gift delivered in the cell, and Ye-sung indeed functions as a gift which brings the prisoners a new life in the cold, hopeless, and entrapped cell. When Yang-ho sees Ye-sung, he mispronounces her name as “Ye-su,” which means “Jesus” in Korean. This subtle line plants the idea that Ye-sung is the savior of the cell, gathering the prisoners and awakening their kindness beneath the crime. Then, Ye-sung sees her dad, but she is still in the box, like how Yong-gu is trapped in the cell. Yong-gu crawls to Ye-sung like a toddler, hugging her and taking her out of the box. Although both are confined in a small space, the camera follows his movement, presenting love’s power to break the claustrophobia in jail. It is also worth noting that the rest of the box is filled with bread and milk boxes, suggesting that Ye-sung uses the space they use to deliver food. Giving up the space for food to sneak Ye-sung in for a brief reunion with Yong-gu, the cell shows the first miracle that love and friendship outweigh the luxurious snacks for the prisoners, whom got caught in the jail because they broke the law for their self-interests.
Inspired by Ye-sung’s drawing of a hot air balloon, the prisoners decided to help Yong-gu escape the cell the day before his execution to avoid his death penalty, which is the day of the prison’s Christmas concert. Ye-sung performs with other kids, and each of them holds hands with a prisoner. Although the kids are surrounded by prisoners, there is no handcuff on the prisoners nor weapon on the prison guards. All we can see is the happiness on everyone’s face. The prisoners are in orange uniforms, the kids are wearing red ties, and the shot is layered with a warm filter, maximizing the feeling of warmth in the cold jail. Yong-gu’s cellmates clear a way for them to get into the hot air balloon among all other prisoners and release the rope to let it fly. All prisoners, including those that are their opponents, assist Yong-gu and Ye-sung to be the only people on the hot air balloon selflessly. None of them tries to take advantage of this possibility to escape, and all of them fight with the guards to ensure Yong-gu can leave. And when they are fighting, Ye-sung says that “everyone is dancing,” still perceiving the dangerous world in the most innocent way that only children have, further proving that the kindness in a child’s mind is what touches all the criminals. However, the fairy tale ends when the wire gate traps the rope. Unlike Yong-gu’s desperate cellmates, he appreciates the view with Ye-sung on the hot air balloon. The kids’ mindset filters the negative ideas, viewing this as a peaceful moment of reunion. The dreadful, dirty, hopeless prison traps the adults physically and mentally, but it can't trap the love of a father and a daughter and their purist love of the world. When the extreme long shot of Yong-gu and Ye-sung appreciating the sunset in the hot air balloon cuts to Ye-sung’s drawing of a hot air balloon above a castle in the cell, juxtaposes the world in and out of the cell. The warm and saturated colors of her painting cover the cold and plain wall, hiding the brutal reality with innocence and imagination. They failed to make Yong-gu escape from the cell, and Yong-gu's death penalty comes the next day, but he accepts his death peacefully.
Some critics view the plot of escaping the jail with a hot air balloon as highly inauthentic and overdramatic, but if we view this from a six-year-old kid’s perspective, it is just a beautiful resolution of a story. In a corrupted world that charges innocent people, a little fairy tale is the only comfort for other people in the dark. In the end, Ye-sung and Yong-gu’s cellmates, now living an ordinary life after their prison terms 20 years after Yong-gu's death, prove Yong-gu’s innocence at the court. There was no miracle when a six-year-old and a room of prisoners were trying to save Yong-gu’s life, and Yong-gu's death after Chrismas eve is irreversible. However, it is a miracle that Yong-gu and Ye-sung filled the cramped cell with love, support, and justice.