closet land be an amazing and terrify piece of cinema . it feature only two actor in a single set and but never lose your attention . the set design be imaginative and troubling and the staging of scene maintains your attention and while add to your own sense of confusion and terror . the acting be outstanding and with alan rickman and madeleine stowe have the duty of carry every scene . i first saw this film in 1991 and soon after it come out on video . it do not play in theater where i live while not surprising and give it political content . it should be see and though . it feature a brilliant staging of the torture and interrogation technique use by repressive society to instill fear and obedience in it citizen . the country be never name and which make it all the more striking . it could be anywhere while east and west and 3rd world and 1st world . it illustrate what happen when a small group of people decide what be best for everyone while when government become the ruler of the citizen and rather than the servant . madeleine stowe be a child author who have be drag from her bed in the night and subject to terror and torture . she find herself in a room with alan rickman and a seemingly pleasant functionary . at first it seem a horrible mistake and she be free to go while but and fear cause her to remain and the terror escalate . she be increasingly subject to physical and mental torture . the interrogator use sensory deprivation and temporal manipulation and confusion and auditory manipulation and role play and and twisted logic to break down the author . she be humiliate and browbeat and force to endure strenuous bodily position and deprive of food and water . through it all and she refuse to give in while to do what the interrogator ask . she be tell that it will all end if she just sign a confession . a simple little act . she refuse . through it all and she employ defense mechanism that have develop since childhood . it be slowly reveal that she be the victim of childhood sexual abuse . to survive and she develop fantasy world and character that would take her away from the abuse . these mechanism allow her to transcend her torture and turn the table on her interrogator . she start attack his own belief and profession and force him to examine his own life and motif . in the end and she be free and because she maintain the freedom of thought . the interrogator be the one trap by the state . this movie be make during the height of the cold war and apartheid and and at a time when the crime of many government throughout the world make daily news . it be even more timely in a world where enemy combatant be hold and interrogate in secret prison and deny legal right or counsel while where ethnic cleansing lay waste to whole society and and humanitarian aid be deny . it demonstrate that the individual can stand up to the state or other oppressor by refuse to give in to fear and terror .