Upurga

I really liked the different approach this film took. When filming for a vegetarian sausage ad, members of the group wander into the forest. You get gaps, you don't know what happened at first. There's confusion and tension as you the viewer don't know what happened, or what is going on either.

The local guide is trying to find them and figure out what happened. You get snips of "found footage" but most of the film isn't in this style. The pacing in the 2nd half of the film isn't perfect, but overall I thought it was a really solid horror film. I really enjoyed it.

The location and cinematography is absolutely gorgeous too.

I am so glad to have caught a little thriller - more than horror - film from Estonia. So glad. OK, it brings nothing to this found footage flick; when you have seen CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST or BLAIRWITCH... and many other rip-offs, you can't get surprised, but you still can be excited, entertained. Plus it is a survival that will make any movie buff think about John Boorman's DELIVERANCE. And, again, many other horror films were the same. I am thru with American horror films, they are more or less all the same, predictable at the most, unlike the European ones, for instance. So, yes, this one is really worth watching if you crave for this kind of film. And remember, you have here more a thriller than a true horror yarn.

It is set in a forested river area that doesn't show up in many International films. Andrejs is a wilderness guide, and his job is to guide a small group of people who are intending to film for a commercial on a vegetarian sausage. For them the trip is a lark, and they have little interest in safety or the dangers and soon they disappear. However Andrejs is serious about his job, and he tries to find out what happened. And it seems the forest has other ideas. And in this movie the forest really is the star. But it really comes down to whether the viewer cares as much as Andrejs does. There is a strange flower growing in the forest, which may explain some of what is happening.

Let me start by saying if you are ok with movies where you don't really quite get what happened at the end, then this movie would get a higher rating than I gave it. People in this movie sort of get 'possessed by the forest' for lack of any better way of describing it. A couple of the people that this happens to don't really seem to have any effects beyond just blacking out for a while, but if you go in this certain area of water, you're just messed up. I'm not completely sure what happens at the end...are the characters leaving or are they staying? I've seen worse movies, but I figured this one was going to be really good since it was Latvian and only had subtitles - how many Latvian films do we get to see in America, right? But I was wrong.... I found this mediocre at best.

This is one of those completely underrated films that you watch without any expectations and it ends up being a surprise, a good surprise. "Upurga", Latvian for "victim", is a very well-directed thriller. Despite being a simple film, Ugis Olte manages to construct a narrative that combines fable and cinematography in an "almost" great film, as I wrote in the title. It reminds a bit "The Blair Witch Project" or "Under The Skin". In fact, the film has a chain that generates a permanent feeling of continuity until the end and despite having a convincing ending, it seems like it could continue as if it were a series. It is interesting to see the difference in the dramaturgy of a little-known country like Latvia, both in the script, direction and acting, subtly different from the pasteurized cinema of the West but without the idiosyncrasies and corniness of more oriental works such as Korean or Arab ones. It's worth watching.