Captifs

If you like this movie, you should also watch a movie where band of jewish soldiers capture german civilians during WW2, takes them in the working camp and at the end kills them in the gas chamber while jewish doctors do experiments on them.

The film starts in Yugoslavia, crosses borders into Kosovo and ends at the back of a UN jeep.

War is perpetual. That is obvious and that is also the message in a cage where there is no mercy, no compassion or respect for life when the rush of war takes over. It is an imperative that it be so, such is the obstinate nature of war and 'Captifs'.

Director Yaan Gozlan's first feature length moves you with atmosphere, sound and baffling and hypnotic camera work. sometimes it moves you inside out and you can also watch it happening (derealisation in films).

'Captifs' is like a kid casually telling a story and suddenly everything gets very serious, extremely uncomfortable and horrific. Some scenes make you want to look away, but you don't; such is the pull of this film.

The film has it's faults but I'd rather stick to the film as whole; I'd rather tell you the good and you figure the bad for yourself, or maybe not. That's why.

In the end it is, in my opinion, telling you how it feels to be at war. How it must feel to not be forgiven, to see madness in the oppressor's eye and then, eventually to start relating to the look.

It left something back. Something that cannot be shed or shaken off.

I found this movie to be mostly alright for the most part. The story have a creepy premise with a gang who kidnap people for their organs because this happened in real life and is a frightening thing to think about. It builds up really well with introducing the characters and them getting captured and discovering what the gang is planning to do on them. Unfortunately, the middle part of the movie is definitely the weakest part. It mostly just the characters are waiting for something to happen and them getting torment by the villains in a tame way. Also, these trapped type of movie is pretty predictable, knowing that they won't easily escape from the gang. But things do pick up when the main character manages to escape. That part of the movie is suspenseful with her trying to sneak past the villains and escape with some people. The climax itself is somewhat suspenseful, but due to the runtime, it has a pretty quick ending to it.

I randomly watched this without any real idea of what the film was supposed to be. In fact I was hoping for the "twist" to be something more surreal or supernatural (like a portal to hell or something), but unfortunately that was not the case.

For one thing, the trope of Serbia being this dark and horrible place (and Eastern countries in general) is tired, shallow and inaccurate. There's some inconsistencies another user pointed out, one big obvious being the "bad guy" with a Serbian tattoo.

Acting is decent, filmwork itself is quite good as well, but the whole thing comes across as rushed, half-assed and predictable. While I wouldn't call this "French Hostel", it's on the same level as far as quality goes. Stereotypical characters, obvious "twists and turns", nothing terribly memorable.

In my opinion, it's particularly disrespectful to base a film on horrible real events and just sort-of switch the characters' ethnicities around. The main premise could still be based on real events but would've worked better had they maybe picked a completely different location or with less focus on the characters' nationalities.

Nothing special here, might as well watch an M Night Shalalalam if you're in the mood for something tepid and mediocre.

Not bad. Decent plot, though fairly conventional for a horror movie, and reminiscent of Turistas. Gritty direction. Short duration, which is good.

Performances are OK.