En el valle de las sombras

A slowly unfolding gothic mood piece about a young rural boy trying to come to grips with the disappearance of his older brother, his mother's despair & struggles, and a series of savage sheep maulings in his farming community. Low on dialogue, but full of mist, towering environmental symbols, mystery and omens, this quietly moving examination of childhood confusion and grief might have been more bluntly entitled, "Is My Brother a Werewolf?"!

6-year old Aslak lives with his mother in a rural town in Norway. Through Aslak's friend we learn that something has been brutally killing the farmers' sheep. Caught in a mix of family secrets and small town struggles, Aslak finds himself drawn into the dense woods behind his house.

Together with Aslak, our young protagonist, we explore the great unknown though the eyes of a child lost in the woods. Danger and curiosity go hand in hand as the movie unfolds. What is real and what isn't? There is something beautifully innocent in looking to nature for answers we cannot comprehend.

It's the mood of the film and the striking visuals, the uncertainty and the looming sense of foreboding, accompanied by eerily beautiful music, that makes Valley of Shadows thoroughly intriguing.

Valley of Shadows is thought provoking with a chilling, fairy-tale like aesthetic that is truly beautiful, while being, at it's core, a movie about a struggling family with their own traumas and secrets.

"Skyggenes dal" is a beautiful film with a gothic and oppressive atmosphere accompanied by a superb cinematography, the performances are wonderful and the script is profound if you can appreciate it.

It actually is more like who ... but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Not that the pacing of the movie would have you in that mood. So if you like fast paced told stories, you might want to look somewhere else. But if you are into stories told slowly and soaking in the mood and the ambient and everything else, this is exactly for you.

Now the fantasy (or fairy?) element of it all is there, but it is quite dark. And while not every question will be answered (remember that and don't blame the movie for it), you will have a lot of tension and a kid that has to physically cross to the other side (analogies and all) - what will he find and will we be able to make sense of it? Well that is for you to discover and to draw your own conclusions ...

Incredibly boring film. How does a boat with no means of propulsion create a wake floating down a river? The woo is strong in this film. Also why does a little boy go around half naked in a freezing landscape?