Ljudozder vegetarijanac

Thought I wold give this one a try. I wish I had not.

The pace of the movie is at fast forward through the whole thing, it snaps from scene to scene in incoherent leaps. The who's who and what's what takes you most of the first hour to get. The last 20 minutes is just a mess, and then its over. There seems to be no point or message, and when the movie ends it just ends, without any real ending. I'm miss context and substance, and I must say, the acting is mediocre at its best.

I could pick and poke at this flick for pages and pages on, but I'll leave it at that.

Unless you are especially interested in Croatian film; give this one a miss, it just ain't worth it!

The title has no relation to the plot of this Croation film. I would guess that something was lost in the translation.

Anyway, Rene Bitorajac plays Dr. Danko Babic, an arrogant gynecologist who is completely amoral. He manipulates patients records to cover up mistakes, and treats nurses working with him as sex objects. He becomes involved with some shady underworld types who run a strip club which doubles as a whore house. The owner is in need of a medical man to perform abortions on the girls who become pregnant at an alarming rate and Danko becomes his go to guy for the operations. A cautionary note here, as a brief dog fighting scene with Pit Bulls may put some viewers off, as will the frequent and nasty pregnancy termination shots, shown in graphic detail. This is not for the squeamish. Bitorajac is excellent as the evil doctor, surrounded by the mundane and equally corrupt physicians and police officials on the take. At one point, he bribes the pathologist to change his report to clear his obvious responsibility for a patients death; so much for the Hippocratic oath. There is no happy ending, and although it is thoroughly depressing and without any humor at all, I found it to be a realistic portrayal of human nature, with a final message of looking out for number one.

A while ago someone launched a rumour in here the Croatian press that this film was going to be nominated for an Oscar for the best foreign picture. HA HA HA HA HA. Good one! Marketing genius, whoever made that one up.

Well, not only is it not being considered for an Oscar or any kind of prestigious award like that, it should actually be given a Razzie for one of the worst films ever. Luckily for Branko Schmidt, the piece is too obscure to actually get a Razzie. So that's one upside of living in Croatia, eh?

That and maybe the fact that Croatian cinematography isn't renowned for spewing out masterpieces in general, so maybe within the scope of that environment this film even compares as "okay". On a more global scale I don't think it deserves any attention.

In short I would describe it as a very sketchy, shallow piece whose story line lacks development and is poorly narrated through sporadic and thin dialogue between superficial, grotesque characters whose motivation is at best - unclear.

Many mediocre films suffer from lack of idea how to end a story, even if their beginning was promising. Cannibal Vegetarian lands "in medias res" with a chaotic speed-sequence that is supposed to reflect the frantic personality of the main character. Perhaps this style may appeal to younger generations. This form of narration continues throughout the film. Unfortunately the director seemed to be so preoccupied with painting the pathology of the main character's psyche that he forgot to develop any other character, or even give a flow and some direction to the actual story being told. Just when you think the plot is about to culminate, it ends abruptly as if the writer had just given up. You get dragged through 85 minutes of painful, forced interactions between all-bad-guys characters to be given no resolution and no message?

What an unfortunate collision of bad writing and unimaginative directing.

An excellent recent (roughly speaking) Croatian film, and that's a rarity, at least when it comes to me. The collaboration between director Schmidt and the main actor Bitorajac is repeated after Metastases, only here Bitorajac has much more freedom and screen time and once again we have a great film as a result. It's quite dark and at times even painful. The title is genius. Relationships and behavior towards certain people, when there is some benefit, are shown excellently. The symbiosis of legal and criminal actions looks quite realistic. One of the better Croatian main roles in recent history. Not for everyone.

cold picture about a kind of Julien Sorel. ambiguous end. interesting acting. result - a cold, gray image from East. it is a film about success. about appearances, ways to obtain it, about lost of conscience, more a parable than pure adaptation. Rene Bitorajac does a splendid job as the doctor of the present moment, materialistic, cynical, cruel in strange manner, selfish and victim of a circle who, at first sigh, protect him.but it is not a film about illusions. only about a form of survive who reminds others films from East - the Romanians are only an example - for present a too honest, direct picture of reality in a kind of naturalism as revenge against the Communist regime ideological pressure. a film from East. who reminds the presence of demons from many of its viewers.