Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

oOoBarracuda While deciding whether or not to make a film covering the Algerian War, Francois Truffaut, the French master of cinema, eventually decided not to take on the task because he felt as though "to show something is to ennoble it". Truffaut further claims in a publication in 1960, that an anti-war film is a contradiction in terms, a sentiment which I tend to agree with. Shame, directed by Ingmar Bergman in 1968, challenges that idea. Depicting a couple who attempt to shield themselves from the war being waged around them, Shame is a powerful statement proving there is no winning on either side of a war. As a civil war has engulfed the area in which they live, Jan Rosenberg (Max von Sydow) and Eva Rosenberg (Liv Ullmann) an apolitical couple who used to earn their living as musicians, grasp at the remnants of what used to be their lives. The war has encroached upon their relationship, as well as their livelihood. Jan is weepy and constantly dealing with the emotional disturbance over the chaos and killing the war has caused. Meanwhile, Eva desperately wants to have children, but her husband can't imagine bringing a child into the anxiety-ridden life they now share. When the war reaches their town, rebels attack killing many of Jan and Eva's neighbors. The couple is continuously harassed and their home eventually destroyed when the two are arrested as collaborators. No matter how far they run, there is no escaping the conflict that has taken over their lives.Shame shows two people who purposefully don't take either side in a war, yet that very silence and unwillingness to take sides results in their being assumed collaborators. Bergman seems to go to great lengths through this film to not only show the necessity of remaining neutral in times of military conflict but also to expose how dangerous it is to hold such a position. Shame is powerful because it exposes the difficulty in actually living a situation where people are not shielded by the side they chose in a battle because they didn't choose a side at all. The couple only has each other and with a host of marital problems to deal with on their own, their lives are further complicated when life or death problems penetrate their existence. We get a glimpse of the security the two used to share before the horrors of war tore them apart outwardly. Inwardly, however, the two were experiencing difficulties which left their own marriage clouded in as much uncertainty as the world around them. In my viewing of Shame, the neutrality was the most interesting aspect as the audience is able to see clearly that the two had not chosen a dominant side for the future of their marriage, just as they hadn't shown a side to adhere to in the war. Using his trademark humanism, Bergman delves deep into a marriage and reveals that no matter how far we delve into the lives of others, we may still be none the wiser to what will happen to them.

Jackson Booth-Millard I have found many of the films of director Ingmar Bergman (The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Persona, Cries and Whispers, Fanny and Alexander) in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, and this was another Swedish film featured in it that I watched. Basically a civil war is occurring, and musicians and married couple Jan Rosenberg (Max Von Sydow) and wife Eva (Liv Ullmann) escape the devastation in society to a rural island and farm, there they remain indifferent to politics, they will communicate with only a few people, and the only luxury they have is wine. Jan and Eva love each other, but problems develop when Jan becomes upset with the war, weeping and becoming sensitive, and Eva wants to have children, but he does not, and they cannot escape the warfare as rebels attack and their neighbours are killed. Order is restored on the other side of the fight, but the couple are arrested for enemy collaboration, but following the fright and abuse against them they are released by local Colonel Jacobi (Gunnar Björnstrand), and he becomes a frequent visitor at the farm, but it is not clear whether he is just being friendly or trying to pursue Eva, at one point she gets money from him. Chaos ensues with the return of the rebels, at one point Jan is given a gun by the soldiers and told to kill the Colonel, he does so, and over the period of time becomes increasingly violent and murderous, until eventually the rebels flee, but the question remains as to whether Jan and Eva can truly escape the war, and if they can what happens next? Also starring Sigge Fürst as Filip, Birgitta Valberg as Mrs Jacobi, Hans Alfredson as Fredrik Lobelius, Ingvar Kjellson as Oswald and Raymond Lundberg as Jacobi's son. Apparently this film is part of a trilogy, the second instalment following Hour of the Wolf, Von Sydow is good acting selfish, immature, treacherous and cowardly, Ullman is good being strong and tender, together they make an intriguing pair of concert violinists and married couple. I will confess that I found the film slow at times, the most interesting moments came from the warfare material, and these moments do feel nightmarish and chilling as it interferes and diminishes love, beauty and trust, I don't fully agree with the four stars out of five by critics, but I know it is not a bad drama. It was nominated the Golden Globe for Best Foreign-Language Foreign Film. Worth watching!

runamokprods Dubbed a masterpiece by almost every critic I respect. I certainly thought was a brilliantly well made film, but one that didn't give me the kind of devastating emotional effect experienced by so many. In fact, going in knowing little about the film, part of what I liked about it would seem like sacrilege to most of those who see the film as completely, unbearably bleak. I may be insane, but I actually found a good portion of it powerfully, blackly funny, in a sort of 'Dr. Strangelove', Roy Andersson sort of way. The surreal insanity of the behavior of the soldiers and officials around our normal working-class couple seemed so exaggerated, almost Keystone Cops with guns, that it DID seem effectively anti-war, but not in the way seen by those who write of unrelieved depression and misery being where the film got its power. That said, it certainly seemed to grow ever more 'real', and by the end felt truly dramatic and haunting. I wonder how I could so misread Bergman's intentions. Certainly, if we're supposed to take the early to middle completely seriously and literally the film works much less well for me than it did, since the horrors these people are exposed to on a literal level seem like nothing compared to the victims of 'real world' wars, where they probably would have been dead very quickly. Take this for what it probably is - an odd outlier opinion, and one that may be replaced when I see the film again. But then, hopefully the occasional outlier can supply a useful alternate point of view.

cbalogh This film offers one of the greatest experiences available to movie-goers. It is by no means a pleasant film, but offers realities and emotions the human mind may never have meant to touch upon. It opens pathways in how an individual thinks, and afterwards will change the person forever. The first time I saw this film was in class, and immediately after seeing it I had to skip my next class and walk around campus in order to reset my body and mind. I felt devastated and, somehow unreal, as if I didn't exist. It was only a few months later that I was telling one of my friends about SHAME, and she asked, "Oh, is that when you were messed up after seeing it, and ran into me talking all strange about it?" I didn't even remember running into or talking to anyone at all while outside that day, I was astonished. In plot terms it is the simple tale of a couple torn apart by war. There suffering is greater than that of the dead and by the end...there are no words to complete the image that Bergman creates. Its like a horrible dream which causes you to wake, altering your own reality forever. This film must be seen.