Kara & Michael’s Blog

(In case you’re wondering, Kara and I do not discuss our reviews with each other, or read each other’s review, before posting them here. We also tend to keep the post-movie discussion in the theater to a minimum.)

Kara’s Review

1. Summarize the plot in one sentence. A young woman obtains an illegal abortion during the communist regime in Romania.
2. Who would you take to see this movie? Explain. Another woman. I don’t mean to imply that men can’t be moved by this movie, just that a woman watching this movie has – statistically – engaged in sex and chances are she has played over in her head the circumstances that could arise from the act of sex. No sane person can deny that pregnancy affects a woman’s life more than a man’s life.
3. What impressed you most about this movie? The ability to deal graphically with unpleasant subject matter with an unflinching point of view. The camera is ever-present.
4. What disappointed you most about this movie? It was boring. I hate to say this, because the critics have loved this movie, but I found myself yawning in the middle of it. It’s a heavy movie, but it’s not really that interesting. There’s too much focus on people thinking, when the conversations people engage in within the movie are far more compelling and more thought-provoking.
5. One person involved in the production of the film must be given a prestigious award, and one person must be cast into an active volcano. Who should receive each of these fates and why? I don’t know if the prestigious award should go to the actors or the writer, but the dialogue within the movie is really good, really human. There were several scenes where I found myself remembering conversations I had been part of that played out in the same way. The camera-work was at times distracting, too focused on weird angles for no readily apparent reason, so I would throw the person overseeing that into a volcano.
6. Under what circumstances would you watch this film again? If I ever taught sociology or philosophy at a college level, I’d probably bring this film into a special session for discussion. Other than that, I don’t believe this film has much artistic merit.

Michael’s Review

1. Summarize the plot in one sentence. With the help of her roommate, a young student in Ceauşescu’s Romania obtains an illegal abortion.
2. Who would you take to see this movie? Explain. This movie is perfect for the art-house film crowd. The setting is a dark, crumbling vision of Eastern Europe, the subject matter is uncomfortable and politically explosive, the shots are long and sometimes inscrutable, and it’s subtitled in a relatively uncommon language.
3. What impressed you most about this movie? While not being quite like anything I’ve seen before, the film still seems to have a consistent sensibility of its own. I could be crazy, but the closest comparison I can draw is to the work of Takashi Miike (without the gore and supernatural elements, of course). I appreciated the way the story unfolded entirely from the point of view of roommate-protagonist Otilia.
4. What disappointed you most about this movie? When you talk about a film like this one that drips with artistic sensibility, it’s taboo to mention the B-word, but I think I have to invoke it here. At certain points, I’m afraid this film is boring. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the sort of person that tosses that criticism around a lot — but there were several points at which I wanted a time check. For example: A dinner party takes place in real time, complete with conversations among family members that do very little (nominally, anyway) to further the story the film is trying to tell. Now, I understand why this was done, and it fits perfectly with the director’s vision, but the truth is that it’s boring to watch. I know plenty of excellent films that are totally unpleasant to watch, but there’s a difference between invoking that kind of unpleasantness and boring the audience.
5. One person involved in the production of the film must be given a prestigious award, and one person must be cast into an active volcano. Who should receive each of these fates and why? Anamaria Marinca (Otilia) deserves the award for this one. She is superb, and meshes perfectly with the world created by the film. The people I would really like to throw into the volcano are the critics who are unwilling to accept that this hauntingly beautiful film has any flaws, but that’s not really a fair choice since they aren’t involved with the film. So the volcano goes to the person operating the handheld camera in the nauseatingly shaky scene of Otilia running through dark streets near the end of the film.
6. Under what circumstances would you watch this film again? I’d certainly watch this film again — probably with someone who hadn’t seen it, but I don’t think I’d mind seeing it by myself again either. I keep wondering whether a second viewing would result in me developing a greater appreciation for the film. As it stands, I think it’s a very good piece of cinema, but I seem to have been much less impressed with it than most people.

Ratings