Entrance

After being treated to many 2-3 minute clips of a very average person with a very average life, I finally gave up at the point where they went to the club and she just sits there, talking to no one. If there were any life to this thing, it had been sucked out a long time before. It was like trying to think of things when your mind is the empty vaccum of space. This was just an abysmal void of nothingness. I skipped ahead to see what -if anything- happened, and I'm glad I stopped it when I did.

Entrance's concept of an unknown killer that's been lurking is a decent one...but the set-up is weak and includes so much of her just walking the streets. By the time the fear comes, there's only 10 minutes left in the movie and the execution is poor.

I was also disturbed by people reviewing this movie and saying how "bored" they were! Have we become so out of touch with the reality of things that so easily can and do occur in our now very sick society, that we rate films such as this only as "poor" or "great" "entertainment"? I feel that this film addressed that very phenomenon: the false sense of security that we all gain just in going about our daily lives, not really heeding little signs that perhaps we should be investigating a bit more, dismissing them as mere 'paranoia'. I found the non-intrusive ease, the quickness, and the possibility of such events happening to any one of us, despite living in the most densely populated cities today, quite upsetting. Not for women living on their own.

The first and only IMDb review I read for this movie said to go into it blindly, so I did without even reading the rest of the review. Going into it blindly is the best advice anyone could give. And if you read the rest of this review, don't worry I won't expose a thing. I won't even tell you what genre this film is (because as far as I can tell it isn't any genre).

I'll be honest and say I hated the first 12 minutes because it seemed indulgent & pointless. Also I'm not really a fan of hand-held camera work. But luckily I have a tolerance/attention span of exactly 13 minutes because that's when a story began to develop. And ultimately I realized even those "pointless" 12 minutes had a point. It sets up a very subtle yet pervasive metaphor, the soul of the whole movie.

Slowly, so slowly that you might not even notice (which I'm sure was the filmmakers' intent) the film starts to get under your skin. And although the only quantifiable storyline for the first 40 minutes is a girl and her dog, it's done so convincingly and, yes, suspensefully that I was hooked. And that, my friends, is all I will say about the plot because you shouldn't expect anything more.

Now a few notes about technique... The directors did something very interesting by never taking the camera off the lead actress throughout the whole movie, not once. Also the camera would sometimes run long, continuous shots without cuts. While this method may sacrifice momentum and some viewer interest, it adds tremendous realism, almost like a documentary feel. And we begin to connect with the heroine even though she doesn't say much. And of course the difficulty in staging the rest of the action while always keeping her in the shot must've been no easy task. The final 22 minutes is a very impressive achievement, all done in one continuous take with a lot going on, and I mean a whole lot.

People have called this film "experimental", but there's no experiment about it. This is a fully finished product with a great style, a novel approach, and certainly the most memorable ending I've seen in ages, ending on an image which I can't decide if it's chilling, hilarious or beautiful.

It's a chilling ending that's unfortunately undermined by several things 1 – it is so slow and takes 50 minute to get to some action 2 – It is so slow I had to go to bed half way through and watch the rest the next night 3 – Back yard acting 4 - Do not waste your time watching this movie 5 - This is an "ART MOVIE "only 6 - It is slow, really slow 7 - I was told by my partner that the ending was worth it. WRONG SO WRONG 8 - No point to wait until the end. Please save your valuable time – I hope you choose wise I signed up to IMDb to save you 90 minutes of pain (The only horror about this movie)There are so many good movies out there so DON'T watch this one – I could make a better one