Reviews

Not much to see here. It reminds me of late European films denying structure and storytelling in favor of planting the viewer's hope that something, anything might happen or at least that things come together in the end. They don't. I was amazed to read in the credits the names of over a dozen people working on some visual effects. There aren't any except a few retouched reflections of the camera in windows. Cinematography is as plain as it can be, which fits the, well, plot. It was not boring though, just ike waiting in an airport lounge can be intersting when you suddenly decide to watch other people waiting instead of getting cranky about your delaed flight. You do not learn anything about anybody. You watch strangers showing their public face who are also waiting for something to happen in between stories. On a metaphorical level, just like your flight being cancelled after two hours of waiting, this story never takes off.

I was amazed that this work of cinematic art has received so little attention. It might be the subject - terminal cancer - which is not a prime suspect for easily entertaining a crowd as any realistic confrontation with death tends to be depressing. However I did not find this film depressing. It might also be that films with surreal elements have a hard time with audiences that expect all things to be at face value, without riddles or elements that are not spelled out completely and leave room for the viewer's imagination. Personally I loved the mixture of subdued thriller and Eastern European type surrealism in a scifi setting of films like Ex Machina.

The main character finds himself in a maze of conflicting feelings and impressions leading to something that could be very possibly his death. He achieves this by going to a hotel that claims to make death as pleasant as possible, with everything happening according to your individual wish. For the dramatic room neighbor of the protagonist this is a very dramatic death. For the main character it is a surreal get together with his wife that resolves open issues. The depiction of dying in this movie was creative and beautiful in a very original way.

It is easy to start telling a story by weaving in all sorts of compelling threads. It is a lot harder to bring those threads to some kind of satisfactory end.

This film starts out interestingly, with the arrival of a public prosecutor in a remote Turkish town punctured by mysterious sink holes, supposedly caused by the abuse of the corrupt mayor's water management.

It appears to be the prosecutor's first assignment. He seems to be arriving from another planet, as he is alien to the type of corruption his country had to endure for decades.

Maybe the director was steering towards making a political film. It is not.

It is no crime story as well. Neither is it a thriller. It might be about a greenhorn prosecutor from the city thrown into the snake pit of law ignoring locals, finding himself between a rock and a hard place. There are a lot of symbolic images, like dead boars being pulled through the street accompanied by illegal gunfire salves and dead rats all over including rat poison in bread boxes.

Many edits seem to be designed to symbolize the main character's confusion. Last but not least there is a thread of the character's sexual confusion. It goes nowhere. The longer the film lasts, the more the film confuses the confusion of the main character with the virtues of clean storytelling.

Somewhere after midpoint, conflicting threads stop making sense. More threads of storytelling are added from there on while existing ones pivot randomly. None of these threads are coming to a conclusion or resonate in a surreal way like films by David Lynch nor others do.

At a certain point two characters try to kill each other in one of the lakes. This is in a region where we have learned that the main problem is lack of water. It is not clear why they want to kill each other. In the next scene they drive down a road peacefully like best friends, without further ado.

I cannot imagine this was in the script. A lot of people are financing a film or working on a movie. Someone most have said something like: "Why do they do this?" I also would have liked to know because i really liked the beginning and I got pulled into what seemed to be a great story.

The only explanation I could come up with was that I did not see a final version or a version that was approved by the producers. The copy of the film I saw might have been somehow fragmented, missing some vital scenes here and there. Maybe what I saw was a movie fragment where scenes having been omitted without the director's or the producer's knowledge. The full film could have been a 10.

If you put the scope of WW1 in relation to its outcome you get a somewhat similar result as the experience you might have with this film. In a way that is the biggest achievement of the movie. This film resembles exactly WW1 in relation of its scope to its result. It is a huge material effort ending up with one basic message: War is bad.

The realm of cinema has been a stage for many films carrying this message. Personally I find it almost impossible to disagree and I probably have taken in the message a long time ago that makes me reluctant in watching war movies unless they are ready to relate other layers of story telling that go beyond the obvious.

The efforts taken in this film are huge, both in the casting as well as in all departments, including FX. There is really nothing in particular that is wrong about the film. If you want to see a feel bad movie about people realizing that war is no fun place to be, or that it might be even pointless to die for, this might be the perfect entertainment for you.

There is a long and powerful canon of war movies. Usually they weave in a basic message, unless they have been commissioned as state propaganda. The message is simple and effective, because it is a truism. War equals horror.

The protagonists in Remarque's story go through that realization. At the time of publication this was probably trailblazing, especially in war mongering Germany.

Europe and the world in the 20th century was set ablaze many times and at many places by this deadly euphoria for war. I believe it has worn off by now and it should continue to do so.

The reality of war has become available on social media. Fewer mothers want their sons to become war heroes except for the most radical ones. We have the looming danger of atomic war that carries no bright outlook, not even for the craziest state leaders. We know war is bad.

We, the masses, have come to realize that wars are either carried out for access to resources, domination of ecosystems or power struggles of the ruling classes against rising masses. A standard war movie makes a point in the obvious depiction of cruelty experienced or carried out by regular people who have been conscripted against their will, or in this case, signed up willingly blinded by war propaganda. It shows how they are pulled into a vortex of pain and horror until they die a useless death. All quiet is doing a good job in that, if not a perfect one. However the screenplay does not provide room for more that that.

There are films like "Apocalypse Now" based on Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", which puts another layer, even a cascade of layers, on top of the obvious.

It is these additional layers I have been missing.

Behind all the grime-in-the-face close ups and grenades going off left and right I could not find anything of that sort. Perhaps risking life for stealing a goose when there is an abundance of onions and potatoes was the closest thing to it. Life becomes worthless, that of others just as your own. Maybe that is the point of the movie. In a way that resembles Remarques nihilistic storytelling. If this was the only purpose of the film it was done more than OK.

Maybe I was mistaken to have been looking for additional layers of story telling or additional layers of character development or an additional layer of some kind of spiritual meaning that would transcend the obvious - that war is bad.

Like I said in the beginning of this review. If the waste of lives and effort of WW1 had one message to the world and if this movie is trying to say just that and nothing more, it was perfect.