A Gangue

I was so looking forward to this! The trailer looked amazing and the hype and general consensus was that The Tribe was incredible. My word. I was so bored! So many components were poorly executed. The acting in general is quite bad, with a few minor exceptions, but I really think the directing makes it seem even worse than it is. The fight scenes are done with, what seems like no effort at all. I couldn't figure out the first fight. Were they trying some moves out for a school play. Some choreography the kids came up with in between classes. That's how it came off to me. The punches certainly don't actually make any contact. The sex scenes are so unrealistic. I mean they're not even close to each other, unless he's very well endowed (which he's not). The plot seems to have many holes in it as well. Where did all the adults go? Are all the truck drivers deaf and mute as well? Too many to list here.

I understand it's quite an achievement to make a film with no dialogue whatsoever, and I think it had potential. The cinematography is pretty well done and the general overtone of the film has merit. The Tribe is a film I had high hopes for and was definitely looking forward to, but I just can't see what others are seeing. http://www.filmnotion.com/

I think anybody who appreciates cinema will be applauding the director of this movie for giving us something truly unique. For a two hour film to keep someone gripped, without any spoken dialogue or subtitles to guide us, shows the power of the good old fashioned visual storytelling. The movie tells the brutal story of a boy trying to fit in, in a boarding school for the deaf. Graphic sex scenes, brutal violence, and an overwhelming sense of dread, combine to make this a very uncomfortable viewing experience. Unfortunately i felt some scenes were dragged out unnecessarily, which prevented it from being the masterpiece thats said to be. I think cutting it shorter than 2 hours would have greatly benefited it, because there were a few occasions where the specific scene made its point, but hung around longer than its welcome. Not a masterpiece, but certainly an intriguing and unique look into the future of film making!

The Tribe is a remarkable movie set in a boarding school for deaf students, or more specifically its dark side. The world of bullying, violence, juvenile delinquency and prostitution. It is brutal, visceral and tragic. The dialogue is in Ukrainian sign language without any subtitles or spoken words. I expected watching such movie to be a torture. I was wrong. It is gripping, immersing, thought-provoking and quite watchable. But it does demand attentive, patient and interested viewer. When Norma Desmond, a character played by Gloria Swanson in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard said: "We didn't need any dialogue, we had faces", she was part right. We really do not need dialogue to grasp the story, but we don't need faces either. We never see any close ups in The Tribe. What we do see is a bigger picture. And that's what this movie is about.

A unique film unlike anything I've seen. Deciding to watch it without being able to comprehend the language was daunting at first but I gave in. When you take away speech from the equation, a lot goes on that gets the audience immersed in the experience. The use of visual cues are important in such a setting and the director does a magnificent job. As a person illiterate in sign language, I had myself interpreting my own dialogue at times but the visuals kept my imagination within the constructs of the story.

At the beginning you're as clueless as the protagonist who is new to this environment. The life of the hearing impaired feels like in a whole other universe. While keeping the unfolding events grounded to their reality, the story goes deeper into the dark world they live in. It's not for the faint of heart and is definitely not for people with a short attention span.

How I decided my rating:

Cast - 2 Concept - 1 Cringe - 1 Story And Screenplay - 0.8 Direction - 0.7 Adult Content - 0.5 Ending - 0.8 Drama - 0.7

At the time of writing (October 2014) this is on release in France but not the UK or the US so I'll write this for the benefit of audiences elsewhere in the world who might be wondering whether to go and see it or not. When not extorting money from other students at a boarding school for the deaf in the Ukraine, the 'tribe' of thugs in the title spend their time robbing train passengers, people in the street or, with the help of their teachers, pimp each other at a truck stop. New kid Sergey arrives and falls for one of the young hookers...which is about all the synopsis you need. There's no dialogue, or subtitles, all the communication between the characters is through sign language. Along with a total absence of incidental music this has the paradoxical effect of heightening the sound...the sounds of footsteps, lorry engines revving for example becoming sinisterly effective. It's not difficult to follow the narrative at all, so don't be put off. The bleak surroundings of the institution combine with a dreary landscape of crumbling apartment blocks, supermarkets at night time in a bitter, dirty grey winter, to heighten the feeling of an amoral universe, a dog eat dog world where everyone is out only for themselves. There's no compassion, the one intimate relationship which develops seems to be motivated by lust, carnality and characterised by opportunism on either part. There doesn't appear to be any real tenderness there. Is the closed institution an allegory for the Ukraine, or human societies as a whole? The Tribe is a unique piece of cinema and inspired me to write, I've seen nothing in the last few years quite so extraordinary, but be warned it most definitely is not for the faint hearted. The violence is sickening, stomach churning, and made all the more shocking by the use of sound and absence of music since even if averting your gaze you remain all too aware of what's happening on screen, with no music to distance or make things ironic. The Tribe forces you to gaze, unblinking, into the abyss of total human depravity.