It's a shame that this beautiful and sad film has waited neary fifty years before being released in France. There are thousands like this one totally invisible in western Europe, so let's take advantage of it. This movie is about childhood, cruelty and also a metaphor of the political communist regime of this period in Soviet Union. It deserves to be seen several times to fully understand it. It seems sweet, light hearted and smooth to watch but underneath, it is painful, thanks to this small girl performance, so moving, so tearful. Definitely a very sensitive film to enjoy.
3 Reviews
The Beauty
liutys21 October 2011
One of the best European movies about childhood. It transcends totalitarian realities of a post-war Soviet-occupied town to address the most important eternal questions faced by children and their parents alike: self-identity, value human relations, love, vulnerability of a human being, meaning of innocence. I highly recommend this film not so much to kids as to the adults who could rediscover a child in themselves and re-live their initiation into our society that more often than not disregards an individual and is so much result orientated rather than spiritual. It is also interesting to parents who are bringing up preschool age kids and look for more insights into child psychology of this age group to understand the challenges they might face in the near future.
The Beauty
namefabian22 April 2020
A deeply pessimistic view on human life whose radicality and cruelty filled me with consternation even hours after I've watched it... the narrative has nothing positive at all, it is only the beauty of the film itself that sets up a counterpart to the desolation of the world it portrays.
At first, we believe we're watching a beautiful little girl, but as the film progresses, it becomes clear that this is a case of unreliable narration. The cruelest moment is when we start to see that the title "the beauty" (grazuole is a gender-neutral word) does not refer to the little girl, but to the film itself.
One of the most devastating experiences you can make in cinema, and utterly beautiful.
At first, we believe we're watching a beautiful little girl, but as the film progresses, it becomes clear that this is a case of unreliable narration. The cruelest moment is when we start to see that the title "the beauty" (grazuole is a gender-neutral word) does not refer to the little girl, but to the film itself.
One of the most devastating experiences you can make in cinema, and utterly beautiful.
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