HermesPan

I wanted to like this movie, as I wanted to like all of the Academy-nominated Best Films, but instead I was so terribly disappointed. The storyline is transparent and one-dimensional, the acting is mediocre to pretty good, and the whole time I waited for 'it' to happen - that moment or scene which grabs you and pulls you into the movie, emotionally tying you to the story, the characters, and the experience. Sadly, it just didn't happen. This movie has one goal, and that is to impress upon the viewer how bad racism is. That is a noble goal, and certainly worth making a film about. But give me a work of art, so that I exit the experience emotionally destroyed, or exhilarated, or something - not a big question mark of an expression on my face. This journey took me nowhere.

As to winning the Academy for Best Picture, I am dumbfounded - how did this happen when each of the other four films were so much better? ANY of the other films were so much more worthy.

Not really knowing anything about this movie other than the summary, I went into watching it without any expectation or prejudice. While the subject matter certainly could be interesting, the storyline and directing really left much to be desired. I even think the character played by Marcel Schlutt (who is a total hottie) has some acting potential, but that is unfortunately not exploited by the film's director. There are too many awkward moments in which nothing is happening, and the characters are quite wooden and quite lackluster. Unlike the other post here, I felt that the English translations, while at times good for colloquialisms, left a bit to be desired.

On the other hand, I did think the idea of using real sex scenes is a novel concept, and certainly made for more convincing 'acting'. I wish the reality of the sex moments could have been translated to other parts of the film (or at least make the sex scenes longer :) It certainly doesn't come across as a 'porn film' other than the quality of the (non sexual) acting at times.

I can't say I recommend this as a need to watch, but if you just can't find anything else to put in your netflix cue, it might be entertaining, at least from certain angles.

Interesting movie, an extended version of one of the episodes from 'dekalog', but I like it better at an hour as opposed to 1 1/2. That said, it's quite a bleak film - virtually none of the characters have any redeeming qualities to it whatsoever. The only likable person is the lawyer. The message is pretty single minded; I would venture to say that most of Kieslowski's communist-era films as a whole speak out boldly against the degeneration of the human condition under state oppression. An interesting topic, and certainly a film that's difficult to watch. If this film interests you, see 'bez konca' (no end) which features grazyna szapolowska in a spectacular role.