Audience Member
One of the least articulate films I have ever seen.
A woman finds her mother has ignored tax demands for perhaps years. The mother kills herself. Her father sets fire to a forest. Her husband has sex with everyone in sight.The woman gives her kids to her sister and decides to leave. Then beats up her sister's husband. Her husband comes home from sea. She drives through a toll gate and is chased by police across some dirt and through a tunnel and more dirt then she isn't chased by police and nearly crashes the car and walks off. Film ends.
My interest finished much sooner.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
01/27/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Lacking in substance.
Told through a series of flashbacks, and odd cuts, this movie is about a woman who suddenly just drives out down the highway, seemingly running away from something. We see her relationship with her husband - how they met, fell in love, had kids and the trials and tribulations of their marriage. We also see the woman's relationship with her parents (and the issues they bring) and with her sister.
Surely enough of a kernel around which to fashion an emotional and interesting story. Unfortunately, there isn't much more to the story. There's really not much meat on the bones here. Important details are missing, things just seem to happen for no rhyme or reason, some details are provided about characters but then these details ultimately, have no bearing on the story, themes and sub-plots are introduced but are ultimately very underdeveloped or are purely red herrings. All this while told through random, not-necessarily-in-chronological-order flashbacks.
It is rare that a movie feels over-edited, but this a definite case of that. The movie should have been at least 30 minutes longer, which would have been easily doable and watchable - the finished product is only 83 minutes long!
Disappointing.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
01/20/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Espoo Cine 2015- 2/10
Greek financial crisis in one family. A lot of other kinds of crisis and a lot of all kinds of sex. Expliciitly. Sisters, one a wanna be lawyer, other with special needs. Old parents. Men. Abuse, violence, suicide and a pointless car chase scene. Open end and a WT... Moment, or many of those actually.
TO NOTE: if you cannot tolerate life alone, do not marry a sea captain.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
01/19/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Title: Badly sequenced screenplay, back&forward flashing ad nausea. Hints to make us familiar with protagonists, are postponed until long after we've lost interest in their motives
Saw this at the Rotterdam film festival 2015 (IFFR). Very well acted and shot overall, but the fragmentation and the continuous back- and forward-flashes deteriorate this movie. There were some compensations, however, for example Maria's impressive monolog in the support group, where she declared her life "ridiculous" in spite of all the things in her favor (healthy children, loving husband, etc). Her monolog explains what this movie is all about. For that reason it would have been much better when this scene had been moved to very early.
Also, the opening scene where someone drives through the dark woods while a radio reporter talks about woods deliberately set on fire, did not provide for any clues how it connected to the story at hand, and neither did subsequent scenes enlighten us in any way. Worse, we had to wait until the end for an explanation how this related to everything else. We get a few pieces of information that Maria is involved in an evil plan, being promised large sums of money before and after the "action", yet it all dangles in the air without becoming clear until the very end. This is far too late to make an enjoyable story which involves us in the protagonists and their motives.
Finally, also caused by a badly sequenced screenplay, is my opinion that the family relations that are the underlying cause of all the troubles, are not introduced properly, or their introductions are too late and too little. We can only reconstruct the true drama in hindsight, but I don't feel any inclination to see this movie twice. Maybe I'm old-fashioned and relying too much on a logical narrative. It's a pity, as all elements were present, but the order could be much better to include the viewer in the process.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
01/27/23
Full Review
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