User Reviews

It was a slightly more individualistic film than classic nazi movies.

I had the feeling of seeing a lot of things because I watched it in a very large frame. Some symmetrical scenes looked beautiful in the movie. Like forest walks or quarry scenes. It was extraordinary to see how incredible things a person can do just for the sake of staying alive. If I'm going to talk about characters I would say the lead actor is very natural and understated. The scene where they talk about love makes me smile as I think of it. For some reason, I felt close to the soldier who wanted to learn Persian and I felt sorry for him in the last scene.

The finale was the most striking part according to the flow of the movie. They didn't suffocate with much drama, at least they didn't want us to experience it. For example, when that deaf man's brother died, another director might have made us feel this, but they didn't choose it.

I found it successful.

So first of all I was gonna see if this was the first feature film the director Vadim Perelman has done, and if so, I was gonna say that it's a pretty good movie for his first time directing a feature length, but it seems like he has made some other movies with not so great ratings except House of Sand and Fog. But still I can't say that this is a bad movie, cause it is absolutely not, but it could've been much better and impactful with some changes.

So I don't know anything about this story being real or not, but as an Iranian myself the concept of it seemed intriguing to me and it was interesting to see how he would come up with fake words and sell them as Farsi.

The beginning of the movie throws us right into the main idea of the film and it kinda feels rushed, even for a 2 hour movie. The main problem I had with this movie was that I wasn't really emotionally invested in it as much as the movie wanted it. And I think the cause of that is that we don't really get to see how "Reza" got captured and what he did before, and the first scene with him is plot related and he gets a book that the real Reza wrote his name on it. So the movie doesn't want to waste any time and kinda rushes everything but there are some plotlines and scenes in the middle that are kinda boring and also irrelevant at the end with no conclusions that they could've cut them and give us more Reza backstory or some sort.

And as usual, with this kind of movies, the general actor Lars Eidinger steals the show with his performance. Not to say that the protagonist wasn't good, he really was and he did his best, but Klaus was the star, even though his character was kinda dumb.

So let's talk about the dumb, or the obvious flaws of the film.

First of all we're in the third act and the general said half an hour ago that he has learned 1500 words, but just now is Reza teaching him words like "hunger" and "work"? Seriously? Isn't "hunger" a related word to cooking and food, the vocabulary that the general wanted to learn first? I know this is a small nitpicking, but it's kinda dumb that he makes equivalents for words like hunger, hope and work, after teaching Klaus 1500 words! Like what are these 1500 words that don't include the word "work"? But it's just a small nitpick so it doesn't really matter.

Another thing that annoyed me was the fact that Reza just told anyone that he saw, that his language is not actually Farsi and it's made up. Like he actually said to the actual doctor of that camp! And the doctor didn't even say anything about it. Maybe he was a good person but it doesn't matter, it was really stupid of Reza. And another guy that he says it to is just a random guy just put in the middle of the forest, between a minefield and a swamp and it's obvious he's just there for the sake of the plot. Like who tf is this guy? Wth is he doing there? A lot of things in this movie are forced, like that blond girl burning the hand of a kitchen worker cause she got thrown out by Klaus. Like I knew she was gonna take it on the poor workers but burning her hand? It kinda feels forced just to say that look at this cartoonishly evil nazzi.

Kinda went off rails here, but back to the problem of Reza saying he's faking, to the doctor and the random guy in the forest, he doesn't even say that to the two Italian brothers. Like does he trust the doctor more than these two? Really?

Also, most of the movie I was waiting for Klaus to find out that Reza actually made all those words from the names of the prisoners (which I thought was dumb and smartest thing at the same time). And I knew that was the case, but it wasn't, they didn't even build up a fake tense scene to make us think he's gonna find out. Even in one scene Klaus was personally crossing the names and it didn't lead to anything, so I don't know if the intention was make us believe it would or not, but I'm kinda disappointed that it wasn't.

But you may ask "well if he did find out from the book then the last scene of him in Tehran's airport wouldn't have happened and he would've killed Reza.

Well, I'd say that even though the scene with "Radj" as Tree, that Reza in the beginning said it means "bread" was great, I think it would've been better if Klaus find out about the names and the same things happened to Reza, it would've been a better reason for Klaus to suspect him instead of just a word that has two meanings.

Another problem is the pointless plotline of those two girl and that one soldier guy story that wasn't completely irrelevant to the main plot, but it didn't lead to anything at all.

So I think I rambled a lot about the problems, the main one being lack of emotional investment. But God damn it if the ending wasn't emotional. I think the choice they made with the names was really smart and it was one of the things that actually lead to a beautiful pay off. Even though it was cheesy that everyone tuned around to look at Reza, it was really emotional and well done.

All in all it's a good film and has some good performances. Even though it wasn't personally emotional for me, I know it would be for a lot of people.

Aside from its flaws, it's a well made movie with a good concept and an okay execution with some fillers that could've been cut.

First of all its not so hard to find a translator or persian speaking and writing person for fix the minor mistakes in the movie to the non persians but the huge to farsi speaking poeoples! Seiriusly disapointed when I saw firt page of the book even do not try to write words with right direction of farsi writing very very first rule. Its originaly start from right to left .little detail and very believable.even a non english or other language start from left to right writing notice the basics.for example the movie name if persians want to write like the books writing seems like these: snossel naiserep!

If, as I believe was intended, this film is taken to be metaphorical, it is excellent! A Jewish man just avoids execution by pretending to be Persian. A German officer tries to use him to learn Persian, although the man himself cannot speak a word of the real language!