Johanna

People walked out of the theatre..fair enough. It's an Art film and an extremely audacious one to boot. But in my humble opinion, it's not worth throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

If you can get past the fact that 1) it's an opera, 2) it's sung (very beautifully) in Hungarian, and 3)there's naked old men singing about liver failure..you might actually enjoy this film. If not then perhaps you might find that you can appreciate it as a one off. Whether that is a good or a bad thing, I suppose is up to the viewer.

The lead actress Orsi Toth is absolutely stunning in this film. Her performance was uncomfortable, emotive, and surprising. I look forward to seeing her in future films.

A remarkable visual feast. A fabulous greenish/yellow color tinting shades the contours of the cast throughout the film, compounded by severe contrasts of moving bright flashlight pools in pitch darkness. A very strange "out-of-body sensation" grabs hold of you until suddenly the talking voices change into operatic ones. The effect was mesmerizing to say the least. After Italian, Hungarian is phonetically the most effective language for opera. Not as harsh as German, but more robust than Italian. A very different sensation. Why aren't there more operas in Hungarian? (Shades of Bartok's "BLUEBEARD'S CASTLE"). The setting of the old asylum in Budapest keeps reminding one of the somber feel of the Danish hospital in Lars von Trier's "THE KINGDOM", with a dash of the picturesqueness of Lubyanka Prison. A modern operetta for the soul... Let your mind run free during this one. And simply ignore all other advice to the contrary. This wonderful gem is a unique and liberating experience...

It is a terrible bad film, do not waste your time to disturb you with it. It is without any story, very bad music. At the half of the film I left it, which occurred only second time in my life. The film suggests that the medical doctors are not able to treat any patient and that paramedical therapies are much more useful. It is declared for instance that a patient who would need a liver transplantation could be healed by sex therapy given by Johanna. I can not imagine what could be in the brain of the director. The pictures are also depressing, the whole film is very unpleasant and misses any taste and good human feeling. As a medical doctor I am especially upset with the content of this film.

Kornel Mundruczo's "Johanna" is a cinematic mess, "full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing." With its garish (green) colours and flared images, a mediocre score and lame libretto, the film is well below par. It would be generous to say this film looks more like a bloated, experimental undergraduate student film from the 1970's. Set aside films such as Ingmar Bergman's acclaimed "The Magic Flute" (1975), Joseph Losey's version of Mozart's "Don Giovanni" (1979)," Carlos Saura's flamenco "Carmen" (1983), and Francesco Rosi's 1984 production of the same material, lead by a cast of international opera stars, as being too mainstream and conventional. Mundruczo's "Johanna", supposedly a retelling of the story of Joan of Arc, is lurid and dimwitted. It is the sort of film to which the jaded cinematic "cognoscenti" ascribe all manner of praise for its director's brave vision and deep meaning, but don't be fooled. I watched the entire film, but I'd suggest that you don't. You'll be checking your watch after ten minutes, thinking an hour has passed, wondering if your time would be better spent doing something else. It would.

I'm so glad to know that I've already seen the worst movie of my life.. This was a ridiculous movie, both story and acting were so bad, that I could only leave the theater with a smile on my face, knowing no movie would ever beat this one! You should know I watch art-house-movies on a regular basis, but this one went way too far in trying to renew the fine art of movie-making.

I must say I'm not a great fan of opera, so that may have been quite good. For those who do like opera, maybe you should rent this movie, but make sure you turn of your TV-screen and that you don't understand a word of the Hungarian language.. Seriously, those things will ruin your experience.