Pokrajina St.2

I recently saw this at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival. Co-produced with Serbia this film is Slovenia's official submission to the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. From writer/director Vinko Moderndorfer this is a story about two men, one older in Polde (Janez Hocevar) and one younger in Sergej (Marko Mandic) who moonlight as burglars. They target the home of a wealthy former communist general (Janez Skof) to steal a valuable painting called "Landscape no.2" that had in itself been stolen from the national museum and spent the last 50 years in the generals possession. Polde's plan is to ransom the painting back to the general for $10,000. In the burglary, Sergej comes across a wall safe and steals the cash it contains as well as a some documents that he doesn't realize implicate highly placed persons in the post-war executions of Nazi collaborators. The general enlists one of his loyalists, a sinister former secret service exterminator known as Instructor (Slobodan Custic) to track down the stolen documents and eliminate the thieves. With Barbara Cerar as Sergej's fiancé Magda, Maja Martina Merljak as Sergej's sex pal Jasna and Jaka Lah as Sergej's apartment neighbor Damjan. This could have been a good thriller and Moderndorfer is obviously a talented filmmaker but the sex and violence are so over the top that it becomes ridiculous. I would give it a 6.5 out of 10.

When you think Slovenian films can't surprise you any more... than you're pretty much correct, actually!

But before continuing, a warning: what follows isn't a review, it is a way of putting out the feelings this film left me with after seeing it about an hour ago. So, how did it make me feel? It made me tempted of suing, both writer and the director (sic) for wasting almost two hours of my life.

Awful, horrible banalization, stereotypization of EPIC proportions, completely unneeded accentuation of sex and violence... could go on, but... This film is bad in SO many levels, you can't even appreciate otherwise great actors.

It starts quite promising, but ends up as a simply stupid wannabe- slasher movie that leaves you with nothing more than a deep hate for the writer. I feel sorry for the actors who wasted their time and fine talent with such a skrapucalo (can't find an appropriate translation, terribly sorry). Making this story from otherwise deeply intriguing and dramatization- worth theme is nothing short of a crime.

The only thing that would make sense is, and I'm heavily speculating here, the Slovenian Film Found (financier) at the time was probably in the hands of our lovely right-wing politics, which likes to take any opportunity to modify or relativize understanding of history. In that context, the script might have made some sense (watch out for the old communist elite!), until the writer screws them up as well.

Now, no one would want to see this. It fails as a reviewer of history, it fails as a study of characters and relationships, and it fails as a slasher. No one should be wasting their time on this.

There are some properly good Slovenian movies. This isn't one. It makes you not wanting to see another one for a very long time.