I've Seen It

Great to see Scorsese try out other types of films and he manages to crank up the suspense with every shot and sound. Di Caprio does what he does best, run around looking confused.  I do like him but feel on this occasion he misses the target in getting the audience to identify with him.  It basically makes it difficult for the viewer to really care what happens to him at the end.

Good performances but the suspension of disbelief on this occasion I feel was a little too much to pull off on this occasion.

Certainly worth a watch

Let me start by saying that this film is a masterpiece in thought provoking, committed, modern cinema. The first half is a tight, suspenseful, psychological thriller. The director then flicks the insane horror switch halfway through and away you go.

Believe the hype, it is unflinching, overlaid with taboo subjects, just getting to the end of the film is not an easy job. In fact there are scenes which are so graphic that they will be burned into your retina long after watching the film.

Taboo aside ever so briefly, I felt that the director actually holds back in some of the scenes. Allow me to explain, the use of flashbacks I felt, softened the blow rather than facing the immediacy of seeing scenes in real time.  Whilst viewing the shocks in flashback, I felt there was already an end, that the narrative had a further path to follow away from the violence. The contrasts in this respect would be with the torture scene in Audition and rape in Irreversible. In those films you are in the moment with the victims and you have no idea how long you both have to endure them and what the outcome will be.

A Serbian Film was certainly more brutal overall than the aforementioned films, that I was able to make it to the end was thanks in no small part to the strength of the performances. There is a real intimacy in the protagonist’s family. You want Milos to look after his family. The art house director who hires Milos comes across perfectly as passionately insane about his art.

More than disgust, shock, horror, I came away with a real sense of the powerful emotion the director tried to bring across in his examination and assessment of his homeland. I took the film as it was intended, a film of complex problems and issues that the serbian people have had to endure. It has certainly given me interest to inform myself on the situation in modern day Serbia, this I feel will enrich further meaning and appreciation from A Serbian Film.

Sorry, but I thought it was excellent, powerful performances and a very stylish production from a talented director.

I have no plans to watch the film again.

Director Juan Jose Campanella is right up on my radar now for producing a sublime film which echoes the themes of obsession, memories and fate that I first came across in Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

There is a pacing in this type of cinema that really draws me into the story. At a hefty 2 hours and 9 minutes there is plenty of time for the story to be told which spans 25 year period following an unsolved rape and murder. The twists and turns rachet up to epic levels in the final act for what seems an open and shut case has profound affects to those caught up in it. Definitely one to watch!

For me this film is up there with Vertigo (obviously first place) and Abre Los Ojos. Unsurprisingly this film scooped an Oscar for best foreign language film this year.

Watch it people!

I was lucky enough to get a ticket to the preview screening of Cyrus at the Soho Curzon.

This was an event sponsored by Grolsch and set up by movie blog Little White Lies. Now not only did I get a ticket for the film but also a free grolsch and some Gouda cheese.

Get that… Film / Beer / Cheese – This is the way to enjoy films.

Only one way to add to that movie experience, a surprise intro from the director Jay Duplass and lead actor John C. Reilly:

Untitled from Mauricio Reyes on Vimeo.