I picked this movie out of curiosity at the Locarno film festival and was deeply touched by it's vibrant sincerity, the display of such a life-affirming power in an almost morbid surrounding and the tight final blink of hope. Saw it again in a small art-house cinema without any loss of this strong impression. Anything else is being said in the above comments, except that it is a shame that you hardly can get this movie anywhere, nor other works of this romanian genius L. Pintilie. Hints welcome. It makes a huge contrast to many disappointing experiences with "award"-laden movies of the well-established breed, garnished with acclaim which you find out are absolutely pointless. I consider myself not being prone to applaud art-house for art-house's sake though. This is a too-well hidden jewel.
Reviews
4 Reviews
school film project meets actors' educational vanities...
19 June 2008
There's a breed of German movies addressed to the younger public and I remember this one being particularly pretentious. Saw this with my son in the theatre yrs ago. There's no need to burning DVD's.
No one ever asked about it. It's rather about making big fuss about children, certain children's names. Bits of fun here and there, but being unrealistic (families, strange freak etc.) is definitely not excuseable by calling it a "modern fairy tale". Quite the most introductory literature books tell these way away from this plot. A lack of strong characters invented for children seems to be the predominant problem; it takes courage...
No one ever asked about it. It's rather about making big fuss about children, certain children's names. Bits of fun here and there, but being unrealistic (families, strange freak etc.) is definitely not excuseable by calling it a "modern fairy tale". Quite the most introductory literature books tell these way away from this plot. A lack of strong characters invented for children seems to be the predominant problem; it takes courage...
Entrusted
(2003 TV Movie)
beautifully framed nonsense
19 March 2006
Warning: Spoilers
This refers to the 180 min. cut of "Entrusted", aired by German TV (ARD). It is a kind of movie you find yourself shaking your head frequently. The persona of Maria von Gall, not-this-world's beauty, noble underground partisan and financer, survival-stylish mother of the cute genius, later going hysterical...mentioned before, but again: this is MTV clip level. Brandauer is Brandauer, maybe he happens to being asked to delivering a different meal sometime, which I would appreciate. Obviously SS-officers in vichy-France used to shave themselves in beautiful white chalkstone quarries, where they did interrogations and torture as well..you didn't know that? Now you can tell. Another funny one: Claire leaves cute Thomas dans la rue to take revenge in the open place they're poking at on the SS-officer who killed her parents, with the advice that he could cross the place afterwards. 'Blam' she does with the gun and almost instantaneously the place, crowded with SS-men and Jewish men and women up to the moment, is abandoned and brave little Thomas crosses it with the bicycle (reengadeeng). No time stretching chiffre, no nothing. Silly, really. It's not just this but several sorts of mistakes, plot holes, incomplete and artificial story aspects and characters. In German we know the expression - I try to translate - pulled about by the hair (An den Haaren herbeigezogen) which goes for the story in total. With the suspicion left, that these "niggles" were to be subordinated under "beautiful pictures, shot by a beautiful name" I am impressed by the subterranean quality of the story told.
Just Cause
(1995)
plot resembles abandoned roadworks somewhere in Italy
20 December 2005
Warning: Spoilers
The performances of Fishbourne (who appears strangely funny somehow) and (short featured)Ed Harris are remarkable, unlike Connery's who doesn't appear to find sense in his role and ends up in the motorial behaviour of a 80yr old man. In fact the screenplay doesn't make sense; imagine a 60 min. happy ending-plot plus a sudden turn appendix without any argumental structure in respect to the characters. It's more an accident than a screenplay and may be good for examination purposes at screen-wrights' schools. The more you remind the details the stronger this impression gets. The capital punishment is not an issue here, although it is a subject from the beginning; it sort of fades away without further comment. The subject-matter and environment could have been good.
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