From a description of what it is like for black prisoners in the South African gaol ‘The Island’, the unreasonableness of apartheid is shown. It was also here that Nelson Mandela was held captive for many years. The film examines the role of language (as an expression of the penal code, social convention, metaphysics) in political repression and challenges the viewer with an unconventional combination of first-person oral history accounts, music, still images and computer graphics.