Hannah

I really liked this movie, however, WHY was her husband put in jail?

I know silly question, have to know...

A very subtle, evocative independent film, with an existential atmosphere recalling Ingmar Bergman's works.

It's a quiet, serene picture of beautifully composed scenes, creating an ambience of seclusion and isolation. We experience the lonely life of a woman who has been rejected by everyone in her life, except her only outlet, a theater group she is involved with.

Some, inexperienced with artistic films, may not appreciate its somber nature. And it's definitely not for those expecting a complete narrative. The film is one big question mark of what happened to her, left up to the viewer's interpretation.

Hannah is a homage to Charlotte Rampling, who should have received more nominations for this performance, and who I hope will receive an achievement award for her career.

Twenty minutes into the movie I realized that I didn't know where it was going and that it gave me not enough clues to be ever figured out. But I kept on watching Rampling. Enjoying every moment of it.

Is it too much to ask for a plot?

The movie Hannah is about those who live without friends. Hannah is the wife of a criminal who because of his crime is a victim. Hannah can't sleep. She is in an impossible situation, but there seem to be no redemption.

What crime has he committed? Why is Hannah met with hate?

More can't be told, it should be felt.

The movie tells fragments of a story without explaining. You'll hav eto sit back and guess.

This is therefore not a film for everybody. It's a movie for those able to feel what loneliness and compassion, and even empathy towards someone who are living a life she didn't choose.

There's a lot of Hannahs around.

Still I would have liked this film to have more of a plot. But Charlotte Rampling is faultless and riveting in her display as Hannah. She' really one of the best, and has deserved the prices she won for this role.

Despite an excellent central performance from Rampling this film is not easy and is not engaging. It is tedious.

The story and its telling recalls Antonioni, think of: Il Grido, il Deserto Rosso, L'Avventura and La Notte, with characters who barely intersect, let alone have any connection to each other, solitary, desperate, fearful, they stumble about the world, tiny and wretched. And that is exactly what 'Hannah' replicates.

Yet with Antonioni the films had a trajectory about a social and personal gulf which 'Hannah' doesn't', Hannah simply records the mundane as the mundane and even with a veteran in Rampling to give the merest levels of drama, it still falls short.

In a film the dramatic premise is necessary, such a narrative as 'Hannah' simulates are possible in prose, they work very well on the page, but in a film the internal represented as physical space is insufficient. It's only observation.

In some respects 'Hannah' is like a reality show, but whereas those shows tease the audience with sexual anticipation, Hannah ruthlessly records the anxiety of a lonely, miserable, woman.