Tag Archives: movie reviews

(movie) 1945(2017.) is a nice piece of Hungarian cinema and vast richness of European movies.

 

20170113moziplakat-az-1945-cimu-filmhezHungarian cinema is maybe small compared to some other countries, but they make great movies. 1945(2017.) is one of them. WWII has ended in Europe and Soviets have taken over Hungary making it communist marionette state like all others behind the iron curtain. Our movie is set into picturesque little village, on the outside, everything is fine and the village mayor, also store owner prepares to marry his son to a girl. But, all that is spoiled when two Jews arrive by train with some wooden cases and doubts, guilt and evil come to the surface. This movie is shot in black and white technique which adds to the somehow bleak atmosphere of Hungarian vast flat country and fields with excellent photography. The story evolves around guilt, consciousness, betrayal of best friends, antisemitism which is on the rise in nowadays Hungary which becomes more and more a one man dictatorship under Orban. This is not a political movie, but has some connotations which can we as viewers relate to nowadays current state of politics. The music is fantastic, all that dark ambient droning mixed with traditional Hungarian instruments and the story is well written, ending is poetic and cool, also the cast is great, the actors are really chosen wisely. I recommend this one to all of you who watch something other than current blockbusters.

(movie) Diary of Diana Budisavljevic is a Croatian must see movie, never to forget!

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Long time no see for some home made Croatian movie to grace the pages of this zine. I waited for this one long time to see. This movie is set into World War II time Zagreb, capitol of Croatia, then being capitol of fascist ustasha state created by Hitler and Mussolini.

Diana Budisavljevic is Austrian, who lives in Zagreb, married to known doctor of orthodox christian fate, Serb and ustasha fascist regime imprisons and kills Jewish women and children, kills people, harasses Serbs and other non Croatian people. Diana sees that and starts an organization to rescue Jewish and other children imprisoned in concentration camps, before it is too late, risking her life and lives of her helpers.

This is a true story movie, the director Dana Budisavljevic(very distant relative to the title characters) made a dark, heavy falling movie about humanity in times of darkness. The movie is a combination of feature film and documentary, because at the same time as Diana´s story, four survivors in real life tell their stories and their recollections of a childhood shattered by Holocaust and imprisonment with death and starvation. I can`t remember the last time some movie shook me so much. I was alone in my row of my hometown theatre and dared not to breathe. Alma Prica is superb as the title character, but rest of the cast is also fantastic, namely Mirjana Karanovic, Kruno Saric, Kresimir Mikic, Vili Matula and others. The story of Diana Budisavljevic was long lost and forgotten although she saved over ten thousand children during the war. The story was lost because after the war in 1945.when communist regime came, she became an enemy of the state due to her Austrian descent and the regime took from her all the files and names of the children who were saved, also pictures of nameless children and that files were never found to this day. This is a movie about real horrors of ustasha fascist servant regime, the criminals who some people nowadays try to apologize and rise again in our home country. We must never forget. We must never allow fascism, Holocaust and murder and all the hatred rise again. This movie is a warning.

(movie)THE NUN(2018.)

I don`t know why most of the horror fans went mad for The Conjuring movies, but they somehow didn˙t work out for me. They were okay, but nothing special, like all or most of the modern horror cinema mainstream movies. Now, The Nun is featured in cinemas, being the spinoff from The Conjuring universe, based on spooky nun character from the second Conjuring movie. I was eager to check out this one.

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It started promising with a suicide of a nun in a remote Romanian monastery and a priest and the nun to be are sent to Romania to see what went on in that monastery. I love how the greyness of the surrounding and the music fit well in the scene with decent acting and the first half an hour of the movie was just fine in my opinion.

There are some really spooky moments like encountering the reverend mother upon arriving to the monastery and the night attack at the old graveyard. Great stuff! Taissa Farmiga(sister of better known Vera Farmiga, known for her role in American Horror Story tv show), was great as sister Irene, Demian Bichir(The Hateful Eight, Machette Kills) too, as father Burke. Their characters somehow add to the overall sinister atmosphere of the movie. They both had some personal torment, which is an important factor in the whole story.

The second half an hour of the movie started with us learning the background of the main characters and spooky and scary events happening in the remote monastery. At that moment my thoughts were that this movie is non stop action packed thrilling ride! I loved absolutely every minute of the first half of the movie! The last third of the movie is reserved for clarifying to us the viewers the history of the cursed monastery and how the nun apparition came to be. The grand finale was good for the movie of this kind. I was so afraid that they will ruin it all in the end, but it was pleasure to see that was not the case. The Nun left some space for the sequel and for couple more thing to be scared of, so I have mixed feelings that the sequel could spoil all the good scares that this movie gave me. Great movie for mainstream cinema horror!

9/10