Die Grube

This movie surprised me. Stumbled it on accidentally, but got hooked and had to finish it.

The acting on main characters was amazing, playing on close to home aspects of life in Latvia, depicting aspects from past and today, starting from hate against non normal during Soviet era, ending with alcoholism and domestic violence issues families experience in our country, ignoring children and making opinions about neighbor without knowing anything about them.

Story is great and flows naturally from the perspective of the young, unheard child and the ending while sad is very beautiful.

Only downside was the camera work, some dialog scenes had some vert awkward stylistic choices that didn't work, at least for me.

To be honest, I was expecting something heavy that would let me down in the end, but none of this happened! The acting was top-tier, the plot was very interesting and the music adds a beautiful (and sometimes haunting) note to the film. Also, there was some great depiction of Latvian nature and sceneries. The ending was more than rewarding, not leaving any questions unanswered. The only thing that disappointed me was the official synopsis. What's the point in saying beforehands that the boy punishes the girl for saying bad things about his dead father, while in the film we discover that almost in the end? For about 70 minutes the only thing you know is that the boy did something very bad to the girl, but we still don't know why, until we see his last flashback, which kind of explains his behaviour. If you know that already, then you've got nothing to wait for.