Earwig

It's a visually attractive movie that makes you think that there is some goal or explanation, yet this never arrives. The environment is dark, dim, damp, old, ghostly. The characters behave in ways that only a writer can force upon, as their behaviors don't match with real people. You could bet that there is some bigger secret or explanation for such artificiality, yet nope. Again, there isn't.

The ending is a whimsical and random and slightly disgusting as the whole movie and you could play games about the explanation. But this is faux depth. Is trying to make the viewer or reader the creator, and that's a horrible technique.

Pretty pictures do not a film make.

Though Earwig has great cinematography and an ethereal glass harmonica score, it is dramatically inert from the word go.

It comes off as dull and pretentious and squanders its moody setting and mysterious premise.

Lucille Hadzihallilovic's third feature is arguably her weakest and most self-indulgent yet.

Earwig is so dark and twisted that you will either love it or hate it.

It reminds me of a 1989 movie I saw with a friend that was so bizarre and dark, that i never forgot it, never want to see it again, but in an odd way love it. That was, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Love.

Though Earwig's story is nothing like it, it has that same kind of darkness running throughout.

It pulls off so many technical concepts they teach in film school excellently, to the point I gave it at least a star or two higher than maybe i would if I hadn't gone to film school.

I don't think there is a good way to describe this movies story.

It is very much an artistic movie from a story perspective, with minimal dialogue and there are elements of it that remind of Tim Burton's darker movies.

100% recommended for anyone in film school or interested in filmmaking or cinematography.

Otherwise, it's dark, weird, and strange enough I'd say don't watch it unless your in a good mood and mentally healthy.

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You gotta be in the mood to watch a movie like this, because it freaked me out because of it's realy weird and disturbing story. Therefore only recommended for the diehard arthouse movie fans, who can stumach a bleak and depressing story.

The good: beautifully photographed, with some scenes resembing a still picture or a painting. It really looks gorgeous and I really love that. The many unknown actors are acting really well, although there is definitely a lack of chemistry BETWEEN the actors and that brings me to the criticism...

The bad: this movie is definitely lacking spark and punch caused by a real lack of interaction between the actors, which wasnt bothering me at the start, but halfway through I began to get somewhat bored by this absence of actors actually speaking to each other. But this is only a minor criticism, many other folks might not mind about this at all.

A beautifully looking moody picture, with it's only downfall being a lack of actor's chemistry.

I'm not a fan of films that are (literally) so dark I can't see what's going on. I know that this is a popular directors' device to "enhance engagement" but IMHO it risks losing the audience completely. In this case, I stuck with it, but remained quite irritated.

Fortunately, the tone and mood compensate somewhat, and the air of mystery is well-maintained, and the occasional bursts of extreme violence are appropriately shocking. I can't honestly say I worked out what it all meant and what was "really happening", but it was quite interesting nevertheless.

Worth a look - I preferred "Evolution" though.