Saw this at the Rotterdam film festival 2015 (IFFR). It is nice to observe a cross section of such a closed community, particularly for myself as I grew up in a small village (750 people, 100 houses). I recognize many things that happened in this movie. The central notion is that everyone knows everyone, upto and including his present and past. Especially the dark sides of each ones past are obviously never forgotten. One is unable to loose it, in spite of having lived a normal life as a law abiding citizen for decades without incident.
Many reviewers insist that there are in fact three separate story lines. I don't see that, since the connecting dots are everywhere in the form of the main protagonists (stranded woman, ex-rapist Ivo, service station attendant, and policeman). These four together see to it that the scenes are tied together into a logical flow of events.
A lot of side protagonists are being thrown in, all of them more or less related to the core story of the woman with the stranded car on one hand, and Ivo with his 20-years old past as a rapist on the other hand. Each of the characters is introduced very well, proportional to his or her importance for the story. As such I never felt myself overwhelmed with the amount of villagers we saw passing.
All in all, very well written script and very well acted. There is a lot of darkness in this film, in almost every meaning of the word, all being perfectly visualized. This is the opposite of a feel-good movie, and that is by design. Yet, could have been much better when the story had a logical wrap up, and did not peter out like it did. I didn't expect a happy ending, but I still felt left alone in the dark after leaving the theater, without any trace of a silver lining.
