Amateur movie with Big budget

A Masterpiece!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Most low reviews are from people claiming they didn't understand the movie, if you didn't understand it, it's your problem man, but giving it a low rate? it's like saying mathematic is a shitty* subject because you can't understand it. ridiculous, these people probably did not like Pulp Fiction, Amores Perros or 21 Grams, which are far more intricate movies. the movie is a Dostoevsky like tale about a man who take a wrong turn and ruins forever his life, showing the miserable and depraved evil that man are capable of. how authoritarian and merciless, and that sometimes the thief or the killer is a better friend than a cop. it also alternates time lines without a hint, which is genius and done in this way to emphasize the movie 'moral'. it's really great if you like depressive art. for me, a sad masterpiece. a movie about how miserable life is. too complicated for some.(IMDb didn't let me write the curses, great.)

Extra warning: absolutely contains spoilers.I've only watched once (so far), and I'll admit that it took some serious concentration to follow. And I'm not without questions.But.For all the reviewers who said that it was simply a bunch of unrelated, disconnected short stories about violence, you didn't watch carefully enough. There IS a main character. The scenes support the story of this main character throughout the whole movie (only if you WATCH the whole thing, of course), all the way to the end.Our truck driving friend gives a lift to some random old man... a man who has lost his name (and his bride) in the war. We see the old man's story. And our truck driving friend has no idea that he will become just like this old man.Our truck driving friend runs out of diesel and ends up getting set upon by three men who are desperate... one of whom is mute. Our truck driving friend has no idea that he will become just like this man who is mute.And, contrary to one reviewer's perception that this all happens 'in a few days', we see a sudden shift from summer or fall to winter. It's our truck driving friend who is lying there in the woman's house, unmoving. It is he whom she takes advantage of physically, while he's unconscious.It is he who becomes imprisoned. He who stumbles out of prison when another inmate breaks out.He who waits by the side of the highway, finally to be picked up by a very talkative driver. And he who snaps at the end.I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started watching this movie. After one viewing, I'm looking forward to owning it and delving deep into its layers, unraveling it as best I can to learn more and to answer some of the questions I still have: what was the time period of the teacher and his young son? And is the son, orphaned and left sitting on the bench at his house, also the same old man who saves our truck driving friend from freezing by taking him home on his horse-drawn sleigh? I have no problem with not having all of the answers at the end of my watch. A movie of this magnitude is certainly worth repeated viewings. If you feel the same way, I recommend this movie to you.

Three main issues = (1) Incredibly irritating to follow unless you know beforehand that the movie is composed of a series of short stories from different time periods. What adds to this problem is that the characters are mostly rough looking bearded Russians sometimes shot in dim light, therefore, it's hard to tell when a new character is being introduced or if it's the same rough looking bearded Russian as before. (2) The short stories themselves aren't really stories but a series of violent occurrences. (3) Since the film is not plot driven it must be making some type of statement or social commentary; unfortunately, that statements been made many times before in better fashion.

First of all, I want to say that the film simply blew me away. This film, Sergei Loznitsa's first feature is not only the best film (and discovery) of the year, but one of the biggest and most important works in cinema of this century.Before, Loznitsa was a documentary film maker and this effect can be seen in his fiction film. It is not only true and violent, but also very unconventional, different (truly ascetic, and here can be seen influence of Loznitsa's mentor, Robert Bresson), Loznitsa's use of long take is truly remarkable, in Russian cinema, long take has been used very ofter, beginning from Tarkovsky, then Shepitko, Sokurov, Zvyagintsv... but Loznitsa's use is different and unique, he absolutely refuses style (there is no disgusting exploitation of manner, that spoils Zvyagintsev's overrated, stupid and pointless "Vozvrascheniye"), he doesn't have style as a director, the film itself creates its style and language (and trust me, it's much difficult and much remarkable).And Loznitsa does very bold thing: he destroys notion of deep shot. Yes, Kiarostami shot films with digital camera (as Loznitsa does), but his shot is extremely static and Loznitsa makes very long travelings with hand held camera, what's truly new thing and it also creates a feeling of claustrophobia, of closed circle, of No Exit and it's really conceptual use of primitive cinematic method.It's extremely difficult film, but it's not art house and it's not the proud film, so called "not for everyone". It IS for everyone, but on the other hand, it should be watched very carefully: consider that you'll be shocked and maybe even depressed but I have one very useful advise: if you decide to watch this TRUE masterpiece, be patient and watch it till the end.It's really worth it.