tim-vanlaere

I saw a review about "battle realism in movies" and this movie was mentioned for the high level of historical accuracy.

As I grew up with stories of war in Belgium through grandparents, we were never really told about what happened in Poland. So it peaked my interest.

Once the characters are established, and you get to "bound with the innocent yought", you are sucked into the brutality and reality of war. The movie puts you right in the middle of it. Some of the more brutal scenes remind me of things my grandparents had told me, but sounded too surreal at the time to properly imagine.

Once the boxing gloves are off, it's fast paced and very craftfully put into picture. With a production value that you could compare to inglorious bastards, without the humor and the "Hollywood treatment". Very artful. Very realistic.

At the same time, a strong lovestory is told.

This was the only thing I could not understand very well; how one of the girls went beyond heaven and hell in dedicated love that was not affirmed before. Her journey shows the perspective outside of the resistance and how citizens are experiecing everything.

I could understand that he had nothing more as giving everything he could to resist the Germans. But in that sentiment, abandons his girl completely ? It just broke my heart after seeing a woman with such love and dedication for a man, being left alone.

Interestingly, my grandparents told also stories of "losing people" in the chaos and finding them back in the most random places. People being displaced or traveling around in lumps of people (for example, there was a call to mobilize to Normandy. My grandfather, as a teenager, jumped on his bike and rode 500km. To find the allied forces, and drove back with the convoy, abandonning his bike. When he got back home, he was scolded for not taking his bike with him - as they earlier in the war traded a bike for bread to be able to eat.) - so parts of this might be realistic, but I couldn't say.

I watched this movie in 3D, which should be an immersive experience.

The animations are done very well, the direction or writing is *very* bad. The movie doesn't flow and feels like it pulled apart another animation movie, made their observations into "rules and laws" and recomposed it in fragments. So it turns out to be a mozaïque of something else trying to be something new. It didn't work.

The entire movie felt as if they have made a storyboard and had sent these boards slide by slide to the animation department to render the scenes without any transition. And then over-manage the scenes while there isn't any transition. Like a slideshow.

Added to this, when two characters interact, the atmosphere is gone. It's usually an empty room, slightly faded in the background. The only moment there is much going on is on the party, but then there is too much chaos to take it all in. While other scene's were rushed in and felt empty. While music felt artificially placed instead of blending away.

For example, you have a dialogue character one says something. Expression. second character does a motion and expression in a different scene it seems. Zip back to the first character, says another thing. Slight pauze. Then the other character frowns, in another setting it seems. Back closeup to the first character. It's too, fragmented. And doesn't flow. This movie doesn't flow at all. It's like sitting in an amusementpark ride, and a sensor trips to display a scene of animatronics. The door closes, the animatronics die out. Another opens. Another animatronic.

Not even to mention the attempt to put in some stereotypes through voicing. The voicing is so without emotion and so dry. Say line. Stop. Say next line. Stop. The animators on this movie were very wonderful, the others not so much. It was a waste of my time and probably you too.