I'm not a movie critic, and I believe nobody should be without a bit of humility, so I'll just say: this movie that isn't even sure how it's spelled, touted as "the movie cinemas are afraid to show" or something, bored me to death. It ranks right up with "Alien 3" and "Blade Runner Director's Cut" among the movies that made me want to get out - and not because it was scary or disgusting. I must be desensitized, but the only scene that made me look away was when the old Nazi gets to work on the kid's ankles, and the friend I was with also mentioned when one of them is stuck into a tight tunnel, but that was all. "Silent Hill" scared me more, and "Hostel" was more disturbing and intellectual. I wouldn't bother with a review, were it not that the movie has such high-handed pretenses that deserve an answer. It starts with the banlieue revolts in France, a very serious theme, deserving of a more believable treatment. We're introduced to the characters, young messed-up misfits but with their heart in the right place who run afoul of a violent police while a far-right candidate is about to be elected president of France. It vaguely sounded like "V for Vendetta" (which I haven't seen, however): a futuristic look as what the world would be like if the far-right came to power. Uh, I think we saw that already, some 70 years ago, but that's ok, a fresh look is always welcome - except that this is not a fresh look. It's the problem I had with Marvel's Civil War. I think you either make a realistic commentary about the banlieues, telling the situation AS IT IS, thus no far-right French president (if Sarkozy is far-right, Obama is a stalinist - I'm not insulting him, I'm trying to follow the reasoning of the makers of this movie), no cannibalistic Nazi family, and no draft for superheroes - OR you make a completely fictitious but CONSISTENT movie about what would happen IF a real extremist took power, but then you don't stoop to quips such as "now we have our own Bush", because I don't remember entire suburbs of Washington DC on fire in the last eight years. You can't have your pie and eat it. But let's accept the premise as a "what if" movie. The situation is so bad that the young protagonists try to run away and end up in a farm where an old Nazi and his loony (and incestuous?) family is just waiting for the occasion to return to the stage. What follows is - sorry for the spoilers - the extermination of the boys in various picturesque ways, and the one girl - the beautiful, intense Karina Testa - is beaten up for the rest of the movie. No, really. It seems everybody takes turn at beating her into a pulp, and this, while it made me sorry for her, is not scary. It would have been far more scary and disturbing, at least for me, if the threat of rape had been more emphasized, instead what we get is a forced kiss. Then she tries to escape, a weird pregnant girl tries to help her... but we never see the mysterious "other children" of the girl, which are hinted at as important chtonic forces but never do anything. At the end, the director suddenly remembers the problem is about the elections and the banlieues and make a cursory reference to it. Bottom line: serious problems of integration and intolerance lead to mad Nazi families eating travellers. Banalization, anyone? And... I'm not German, but I have German relatives, and the stereotype Nazi quite offended me. But politically correct tolerance does not extend to everyone, in my experience. At dinner, he whistles "Lili Marlene", and I jumped on my seat, because it's a beautiful song and I had been listening to it that day to pick up some German, together with "Mackie Messer", "99 Luftballons" and the like. I do know it was sung in Nazi Germany, but is this enough to brand it as a Nazi song? Also, is it right to present Nazism as a murderous, cannibalistic, incestuous horror movie plot device, instead of the sneaky, perverted, dangerous force it was 70 years ago and convinced millions of otherwise normal people, and which now is not dead, but is luckily condemned and fought? This movie tried to say too much, and said it badly. And it wasn't even scary. My humble opinion. |