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Two people face each other across a worn table with bread and two cups placed in front of them.

Image: Monocurator · source · Original Monocurator artwork

War drama

The Captive

TenseGentle Approachable · Moderate War drama

During conflict in the Balkans, a household is forced to accommodate an enemy prisoner, making war a matter of food, labour, and proximity.

Year
1915
Director
Cecil B. DeMille
Country
United States
Length
50 min

What to expect

The film narrows military conflict to a domestic space where national labels and personal obligation cannot remain neatly aligned.

How to ease in

Keep the changing relation between prisoner and household at the centre. The war explains the coercion, but small exchanges show why the assigned roles become unstable.

Heads-up

A quick, non-exhaustive note Includes war violence, captivity, death, ethnic stereotyping, and romanticised sacrifice.
Momo's Note May contain spoilers Who is Momo? →
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A prisoner enters the house as a category before he can be seen as a person. I watch routine work undo some of the certainty that war brought through the door.

— Momo

Momo thinking about this film

Credits & versions

Version map

Wikidata 50-minute listing50 min50 minutes reproduces the single duration stated by the source. The listing does not identify a cut, score, territory, frame rate, source element, or restoration.Source: Wikidata — The CaptiveRuntime reference · Checked 2026-08-22

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