Resistance

When I heard this was a movie about an alternate reality where Britain lost the Second World War and becomes under German control, I thought "GREAT!! Sounds like an fascinating exploration of people suffering under the occupation of an enemy force." The truth is somewhat different though... in fact, my initial reaction couldn't have been less accurate if I'd assumed David Cameron would be a Conservative Prime Minister.

The 'action' focuses on a lonely Welsh valley, after D-day has failed and all the men disappear overnight. A handful of Jerrys appear (The budgeters couldn't afford to hire any more, ya see) and take over the even smaller population (Man, those purse strings must've been tight), and one of them takes a fancy to a local girl who's husband has gone AWOL. His pathetic attempts at courtship takes up the lion's share of the length, while some dogs, a horse and a sheep die in tragic circumstances.

What's that? You wanted MORE? You expected large scale gun battles, the sight of people suffering during Nazi authority, real tension, and God forbid, some genuine wartime atmosphere? None of that here, matey. The Germans here seem like nice chappies, helping out around the farm and treating the residents with respect and curtesy. This might be alright for the fictional characters in the movie, but it kills all interest stone dead.

There are myriads of flashbacks, none of help move the plot forward at all and only serve to confuse the viewer with their irrelevance. I didn't care about any of these people, because the script gave me nothing TO care about. You'd be hard pushed to find anything that lasts for more than 80 minutes where less happens, and considering the Can't-Miss central premise, this is a crime. One day, they'll make a film about this very subject, on a much grander scale.

And, *fingers crossed* it'll be nothing like this. 3/10

Resistance is a war movie like no other I have seen. It is probably more accurate to describe it as a film about humanity found in war. This probably marks it out as an anti-war movie if anything and is clearly not to everyone's taste. It is, however, to mine, and I have found myself thinking about the film for many days after seeing it.

It is a film which stays with you. It is also a film that perhaps expects rather a lot from the audience, for which I and my wife were incredibly grateful, as this is increasingly uncommon.

I would recommend you to see this film if you like ideas, beauty and no easy answers. The performances are uniformly stunning and the photography, breathtaking. Don't see it if you expect to be told what to think. This is a film about difficult questions in extreme circumstances and as such demands commitment.

The romance of melancholy is the best way I can describe the tone.

This dreary film would of been fine if I was looking to feel contemplative on the idea of existence as a whole showing how meaningful it is through single life and the glorification of the mundane interaction that such a singular life must undertake. But I was not looking for that. I felt mislead by the description, it would be perfectly fine and enjoyable if this was what I wanted.

That being said the discussion of the humans condition being consistence (and repetitive) regardless of cultural differences is some what over done these days. It is a notion that needs to evolve in its functional use for story telling. Hopefully where it is not longer the core of a story but an assumed trait perhaps. This is only a personal preference though and I acknowledge that not everyone thinks it is an trope that has become unreasonably popular.

what this movie was trying to portray or to interpreted is completely beyond me to comprehend. the screenplay was one of the worst ones i've ever experienced, so hollow, so dreary, so pretentious and so nothing. what's the poetic beauty in it, like one reviewer claimed? a movie is not a abstract painting that you could have different interpretation you saw differently from the others.

the sound effect is extremely bad. why? those thundering noises we usually heard only in the sci-fi movies when the alien spaceships attacking the earth but they constantly appeared in this film, making me think those noises might have come from the German bombers invaded the airspace before dropping big bombs. there were several females in this dreary scenario, some local males showed up or disappeared. some battle-hardened German soldiers who fell for the two local young women...but wtf?! this film tried all the ingredients to be nostalgic, poetic, romantic, harsh, cold, cold blood, goodwill....everything that you could think about, but in the end only a BIG NADA. i've tried so hard to get a grip of this movie's deep meaning, tried to understand why it should be made, to tell about....WHAT? then, it suddenly turned into an abstract messy crap.

A really disappointing film. Adding 40/50 minutes of people staring in silence at someone or at something doesn't make a film poetic, gentle and sensitive, it's just a trick to water down the screenplay and save a lot of money for a low-budget film. The screenplay, by the way, is quite ordinary and unconvincing. In fact the action and the dialogues are so rare here, that almost all of them, the essential ones at least, are in the trailer. It's even funny to think that the film is practically the trailer plus silence and some beautiful views of the welsh mountains. This could be easily a 10-15 minutes short film without losing anything of the plot.