Freaks Out

A quite fantastical adventure that caught my eye out of curiosity, I went into watching this film blind without viewing a trailer, what wonderful surprise this film was in a good way, a rather odd but strange tale of a circus family of freaks caught up the horrors of WW2 and the evils of Nazism thru out the countryside, and how they grapple with being separated from one another, a mix of wizard of oz, X-men and Fellini, they meet various characters along the way in their journey both good and evil, this movie was rather long and some of the scenes dragged along, but it will hold your attention and that matters most, especially the second act of this film, when the drama takes a turn towards action, the war scenes were well staged and unedited as a matter of fact most of the violence was unedited but not in an extreme way, the Nazi army wasn't prepared for these hapless and uncanny heroes and their survival skills was put to good use, which I enjoyed a lot in a few scenes, if this film is available in your area, and you're in the mood for something entirely different than the normal, seek this one out.

The story is steeped in magic realism, well acted and quite touching in several moments.

My favourite character was the hunchback leader of the partisan gang, but everybody deserved praise (Santamaria was excellent as always, all but unrecognizable under a heavy Chewbacca - style makeup).

Franz chews every scene he's in, and even minor characters are well-rounded, from Irina to the wolf-woman to the partisan sniper.

Even the final battle scene is well choreographed, and makes more tactical sense than several big budget battles where the opposing armies simply rush at each other.

Definitely recommended.

WWII is the backdrop for Matilde and her 3 friends that all have special abilities. It's parts Greatest Showman, Xmen, and Schindler's List all in one - and somehow it works.

This was an amazing movie. Great acting, scenery, special effects, comedy as well as drama, and one of the best war fighting scenes I've seen for a while in the last 25 mins. Awesome!

What Mainetti was aiming to do was probably a bit too ambitious for the budget of the movie, you can see that mainly in the vfx, however the movie is able to appear realistic, thanks to the folk substrate of the characters and locations. A note of credit goes to Aurora Giovinazzo, who plays Matilde, for her great performance, surely a good discovery for the italian cinema. Indeed a really well made movie for the italian and european scene, which can aspire to be seen overseas.