Semmelweis

Semmelweis was indeed a admirable historical figure, but the movie has added too much romanticized fantasy to the story up to the point where some people would shout "historical inauthenticity".

I understand the need to dramatise the story for the moviegoer audience, but some casting accuracies and factual authenticity wouldn't have hurt the overall enjoyability of the film, but at the same time the struggle of that particular era was really palpable.

In general it was a movie to be seen once, but it won't become a cinema classic, but compromises between drama, authenticity and production budget led to this outcome. You should watch it at least once, to see why science is held back by authority.

My students and I watched this movie today. They liked it a lot, and we talked about it for a long time afterwards, it seemed that it piqued their interest. The story is exciting, sometimes too much so naturalistic. Struggle and tragedies accompanied the film, presenting the XIX. Health condition of the century. I didn't know many of the actors, but they all gave excellent performances. The young actor who played Semmelweis, Vecsey H. Miklós, created a convincing, real doctor character. Lajos Koltay's excellent direction also contributed to the experience. The creators can be rightfully proud. I hope the film gets international recognition.

This film tells a beautiful story with using a few clichés that make this movie only good. It's the kind of film you have probably watched several times, but I think it's worth watching, because few movies give you the joy this one has. The acting performances are great except for the little daughter. I could not understand half of what she said. It's well-shot, well-edited, the production and costume design is amazing. Lajos Koltai proves that he is a good director, but this film is kind of monotonous, slow. It can be boring ometimes and it's very predictable. Overall the film is good, but it could've been a lot better.

The only reason I give 3 stars is the cinematography. Which is itself completely all right. But other than that, I would be in real trouble if I had to point out some notable/positive features of the movie. As someone mentioned before, the real downside is the storyline itself. It could have been improved, once they decided to go with fiction instead of sticking with the actual history. I would prefer a more realistic approach any day but this kind of thing can still be legitimate for some people.

The characters were mediocre, it is hard to say anything beyond that. The sophisticated presentation of the characters would have required thoughtful acting, but this was lacking here. There was much more to be made of this topic. This is a one-time watch movie, but only if you really don't have anything better to do.

I'm quite disappointed to be honest. The technical side of the movie is totally ok. A little bit claustrophobic for me as basically there are no open spaces in the movie but still technically the film is ok.

The real downside is the storyline itself. Basically nothing was as it's in the movie. The whole austrian-hungarian rivalry is a lie. Klein did not even exist. As such the whole laundry scandal is made up too. Emma is fictional too just as the espionage line. The autopsy of Kolletschka wasn't preformed by Semmelweis as he wasn't even in the country at the time of Kolletschka's death. Semmelweis only studied the notes of the autopsy. As such it couldn't not be a scandal.

If you watch the movie you just see a brainless propaganda movie. It's an absolute disgrace that wants you to think that mean austrians mistreated a hungarian genius just because his nationality. It's not better than those stupid soviet heroic movies.

Too bad that the filmmakers made a cheap and dumb propaganda movie instead of a historically accurate objective adaptation. Semmelweis should deserve more than that.