Reviews

What a dire spectacle this was! The film succeeds in providing a glimpse into the grotesque Bulgarian reality of today. Ignorance, crude behaviour and manners, dishonesty and utter lack of empathy pervade every aspect of life; throughout the whole film you will not hear the words "please" or "thank you", as if they have been erased from the language. Harking back to the inherited values from 50 years of the "Socialist paradise" and thrown into acute focus, you see the disinterested police force, which nevertheless doesn't fail to be brutish, the corrupt doctors who defraud the health system, the unscrupulous new age mystic charlatans praying on the poor, the brainless "cultural workers" of the socialist age, the incompetent new "professionals" who can't turn in a piece of quality work....all this is convincingly bound together through the incessant lies of the son and the imbecilic delusions of the father. Cinematically, the film is sound, with good all round performances and unsparing cinematography, but as a Bulgarian myself I wish I had not seen it; it disheartens you so!

Oh my, oh my.....what a lot of crock that was! Tarantino-shmarantino...never was so much dull and pointelss drivel written by so lauded a fake "auteur". I read all the 1-star reviews here, I looked at the overall 8-rating and I thought this must be a case of see-for-myself, what with being open-minded and having enjoyed Django Unchained and Pulp Fiction in the past. So I bought a ticket....and when I finished my popcorn and coke, having watched 40 minutes of mindless dialogue I promptly got up and walked out of the theatre. But here is the good news: YOU do not need to be as silly as me! If you fancy popcorn and coke, just buy the stuff, take it to a bench in the park and listen to the birds sing :))

This a simple but beautifully told story about the gypsy population in a remote Bulgarian village. The humanity and intelligence of the characters and the film makers shines equally throughout. I only wish more films like this were made and regularly shown in order to change the negative perceptions which have been inculcated into the Bulgarion psyche over many decades. The gypsies are no less human and no less deserving than any other citizen of their country!

Mr Ozon needs to come up for air....what utter trash he served up here, from the opening scene close up of a moist vagina, through the interminable nudity and sex scenes, none of them contributing ANYTHING to the plot, to the convoluted and absurd story line, this was one epic loss of time! I only persisted with seeing this ridiculous garbage to the end because I wondered how many Skoda cars the producers had contracted as product placement. What a joke! The best one is, of course, that the film got some awards, hahah!

A dull, slow telling of a depressing, ugly story. The fact that it rings true to life does not make it any more palatable.

Like much of contemporary Bulgarian cinema the film dwells on issues dealing with the corrupt and cynical legacy of a post-communist state in which police, criminals and judiciary co-exist hand-in-glove to the detriment of ordinary people and society as a whole. There are however no redeeming features, no fulfilling outcome, just an ever darkening absence of innocence.

I am at a loss to understand the enthusiastic reception the film has enjoyed; was it the ever lingering long closeups of the main character, the expressionless acting, the uninspired cinematography or the slow linear storytelling that merited awards?

If you want a punchy, impactful and memorable film that deals with the same reality, I suggest you watch Glory (Slava) instead; it's dark but funny and refreshing in equal measures.

After nearly half a century under Communist regime, countries of the former Soviet Union Block find themselves in a terrifying moral limbo: concepts such as self-worth, civic duty, integrity and compassion have been systematically eradicated in the name of Party Rule to a point where a simple act of honesty can be met with derision and disbelief.

New forces now shape the daily lives of people and their effect is most ugly to behold. Servility coupled with arrogance, total absence of empathy, corrupt practices and disdain for the rule of law or the fellow human being - these are the themes so aptly explored in this cinematic gem from Bulgaria.

The two leads are superbly cast and acted, juxtaposing old versus new morality. The story itself unfolds in the style of a Greek fable and it is this very simplicity, delivered with no frills, that packs a considerable moral punch. Don't miss!

This film doesn't know what it wants to be - it lurches between comedy, satire and moments of elegiac drama. It needs about 30 minutes expunging and the storytelling would be more coherent and impactful.

There are some well defined characters and a few that make little useful contribution, but the acting was mostly theatrical, if not bombastic at times. I believe the story would have benefited had the emphasis been placed more on the dramatic and self-sacrificial nature of the events portrayed. The cinematography stands out, as well as the music, but I couldn't help being reminded of The Revenant in respect of both.

IMHO, the English title should be Elevation - there is a scene in which a captured revolutionary is being carted along the street and the camera rests on a plaque outside the school wall where we see the word "Vuzvishenie" deployed to mean the kind of elevation only education brings. This theme wove a thread throughout the whole film.

I saw this film during the Sofia Film Festival in March 2014. I was thoroughly impressed with everything - the story was well woven together, the acting of all characters was beyond reproach - I particularly liked the charming role of the young Anghel Damian who played Victor - and the film works on every level. Apparently the story is to a considerable extent true to real life events. The political impact was a little subdued within some of the plot lines, but perhaps so much the better - it makes for entertaining viewing. The message from the film is that perhaps fading memory should not be allowed to obliterate the mistakes of the past. Well done, Valentin Hotea and cast.

Starts with a bang - the opening scene is the only thing worth seeing in the whole film, and it goes downhill all the way from there. The music aside - and there was a peppering of some much loved golden oldies - everything about this film is second rate; I found myself wondering if this was a spoof, or an attempt at some sort of weird comedy - but, alas, nothing funny or even remotely amusing ensued throughout. And, by the way, De Niro is becoming just sad with these typecast cameos, they simply don't work any more. Avoid this film if you value your time ( I actually aborted as soon as the long-awaited "scam" was revealed), and if you want to see hustle, watch again David Mamet's Heist, or Fabian Bielinsky's Nine Queens.

Simply awful....I cannot bring myself to waste another minute of my time on this pile of tripe. And shame on you, Julianne Moore, for making this monumental garbage....remember your role in Magnolia? That was cinema, not this! Obviously, once the immense obtuseness of the plot became apparent, which was sometime after the first fifteen or twenty minutes, I was gladly making cups of tea and/or skipping forward to save my brain from the insult or injury. It is unfortunate that viewer reviews have to be at least ten lines long....I guess the best remedy here is to copy the first paragraph: Simply awful....I cannot bring myself to waste another minute of my time on this pile of tripe. And shame on you, Julianne Moore, for making this monumental garbage....remember your role in Magnolia? That was cinema, not this!

If you are blind and fond of platitudes and clichés, then this may be just the ticket for you. It is a film (at a stretch of the imagination) about two men out for a walk meeting a woman who in about an hour and a bit will enlighten them in no uncertain terms about life, the universe and all that.... while NOTHING HAPPENS! You might as well close your eyes because there's no scenery or cinematography to speak of, no actual acting except reading lines and more lines of script. You watch them talk, mostly the woman (what a waste of a role for Liv Ullman), lecturing you in popular physics about who Descartes or Newton were and how their physics and modern science can shape our take on LIFE...wow!!! It is a good case of reductio ad absurdum: three capable actors whose presence may well trick you into wasting your time (just as it did me) talking on camera. You won't hear anything you haven't read in The HItchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, and you won't have a laugh either. What an utter bore - give it a miss!

Have you seen a film where NOTHING happens but you wait nevertheless, hoping that there will be something meaningful any moment now? Well, this is one of them. What's the point of mentioning some fairly good acting and a decent soundtrack....it's all for nothing... What a shame, to realise that an hour and a half of your life has just been stolen. Now, a review needs to be at least ten lines long....haa-haa, a film needs to be of certain length too, doesn't it, Sophia? I could just fluff it all up a little, but that would be akin to plagiarising Ms Coppola's work. Instead, I shall repeat what I said earlier: Have you seen a film where NOTHING happens but you wait nevertheless, hoping that there will be something meaningful any moment now? Well, this is one of them. What's the point of mentioning some fairly good acting and a decent soundtrack....it's all for nothing...

It is some time since I have seen both versions of the film, but Dino Risi's original left an indelible mark, unlike the lightweight Hollywood incarnation. The dark, atmospheric "Profumo di Donna" showcases a powerful performance by Vitorrio Gassman - "non sono un leone" reverberates with the tragic realisation of a strong man defeated. Hollywood is so adept at picking a good story well told and churning it out in the familiar mould - big budget, big name lead - but, hey - horses for courses! Most English speaking viewers can't be discomfited to read subtitles and, unless a film is dubbed, would gladly deny its virtue.