Reviews

Only those with a heart of stone could fail to be moved to tears by the emotionally shattering ending. Yes, the movie does have flaws but only the truly pedantic would complain that these spoiled their enjoyment of it. The fade out scene of the two boys holding hands in the 'shower' is one that will live with you long after the credits have rolled. If nothing else it is a poignant reminder of the 'evil that men do' and recent events in Africa and the Balkans show that mass murder of a race is no thing of the past. It is hoped that schools will use this film as a basis for Holocaust education studies as material of this type aimed at a young audience is rare.

I've just seen this at the Berlin Film Festival. It tells of a young boy from Georgia on his way to his place of birth in Abkhazia where he hopes to find his father. The area is portrayed as a grim landscape of bombed out buildings where the unfortunate survivors of the recent war eke out a precarious living. The photography of a rarely seen part of the world is beautiful and the film successfully draws the viewer into the plight of the plucky youngster who sets out to search for his lost father despite advice that he will be dead. Along the way he meets a collection of weird and wonderful characters who help and hinder him in his quest. Up until the last 10 minutes I really enjoyed the movie but the abrupt and puzzling conclusion spoiled it for me. **SPOILER ALERT**. On arriving at the town of his birth he is told that his father re-married and moved away many years ago. He wanders out of the town and comes across a group of drunken musicians. They ask him to join in - he does. The screen goes black for a couple of seconds and then we are treated to a vista of wild animals - giraffes and elephants etc - wandering over an African landscape. The movie then ends! I've no idea why African animals should suddenly make an appearance. Can anybody post the reason for this strange ending? I enjoyed the first 80 minutes but a movie should have ending!

I've never given such a low rating for a movie before as I always try to be positive in my reviews, but having just watched 'Event 16' on DVD I'm astonished that anything as bad as this was ever released at all. The plot summary sounded promising- a time travelling serial killer (echoes of Nicholas Meyer's excellent 'Time After Time' which the plot steals from) .

The FX are quite reasonable for an obviously low-budget movie, but that's as far as the plus points go. The acting is completely one dimensional and the bad guys behave like second rate pantomime villains just waiting for an audience of children to boo them.

The dialogue is cringingly dire and even the actors look embarrassed at some of the truly awful dialogue they are asked to speak.

Product placement was the most obvious of any movie I've ever seen. You didn't need to read the credits to know that Misubishi was the main sponsor. The camera zoomed in on the company logo in almost the first frame and all the vehicles driven by the the main characters were of course all Mitsubishi!

This was the first time I had had seen a movie made and produced in New Zealand. I hope there's better to come!

I've just seen the European Premier of this movie at the Berlin Film Festival and found it to be one of the most emotionally draining films I have ever seen. I cannot recall another film in which the sheer terror of living under the constant threat of death has been so realistically depicted. The scenes where the family are cowering in terror as bullets fly through their house were brilliantly directed and I witnessed many of the audience cowering in their seats at these points. The scene at the end where the 2 of the 4 boys taken down to the river are brutally executed by the army had the audience crying out in horror as they could not believe the utter callousness they had just witnessed. I note that the film has been put forward for an Oscar nomination. I can think of no movie that deserves it more.