La foresta di ghiaccio

(2014)The Ice forest/ La foresta di ghiaccio MYSTERY DRAMA

Co-written and directed by Claudio Noce which opens with a young child asked to run away from what I assumed was his father in the dark snow before the movie jumps 20 years later. And that young child grows up to be Pietro (Domenico Diele) or as the boss, Lorenzo (Adriano Giannini) who employs him calls him "Grease monkey" since he has a knack for repairing things that involve motors and so forth. Meanwhile, what it looked like was a female reporter, Lana (Kseniya Rappoport) is attempting to gather some evidence for from a guy name Secondo (Emir Kusturica) the owner of the power plant located high at the snowy alps and was given three more days to track down some evidence regarding criminal wrong doing involving migrants.

How important is the music for a film! Especially when the music is good and strong. A good example is this film. The music ennobles the picture, what we see on the screen, "the action". Because not too much is happening. We see rather commonplace scenes, one after another, somewhere in an unnamed mountain village in the Alps. There is a mystery, something is happening but we do not know what, we are not told and nothing is shown to us. Often is invoked the bear but we don't see it. I've always tried to watch movies more special, weird, strange, unique. I had the feeling that this is such a kind of movie. In the good sense. But, although evoking a sad episode from the recent history of former Yugoslavia, the film is nothing but a waste of time. Neither the cool presence, as an actor, of Emir Kusturica, does not save anything.

Good film absolutely DESTROYED by appalling American dubbing. Trying to watch in Italian with English subs is just as bad. Half of the lines are completely ignored and your left having to fill in the blanks.

One the one hand. Bad rating is quite unfair as this is a film with great acting, cinematography and, yes, thrilling atmosphere. On the other hand, pace should be at least slightly faster, and the movie is unnecessarily confusing sometimes. I liked the different elements of the story, but I did not feel that all of them have been properly connected with each other or enough grounded. I read a review which said that a more tight script or another edition could improve the film and lead to a better outcome, and I agree with that.

But not for all audiences. It takes place in the wolderness where demons from the past emerge among the mountains. Events related to the war in Bosnia. Emir Kusturica is awesome in thuis underrated Italian flick, very beautifully photographed and acted too. It should have been more or best released. I recommend it.