justahunch-70549

Going into a movie cold is always a bit of an adventure, many times poor, but sometimes for the good. This would be part of the latter. I think. I've not in Slovenia and know little about it, but I was raised by uncaring parents that never waivered in their darkness and tried my entire upbringing to overcome it and fit in, unsuccessfully, so this held some really unexpected impact on me. Knowing how tough bad or non-existent parenting can be on a young human affecting them for life, usually for the worse, one can understand the rage involved with this film's ending, but it is nevertheless one hard to justify. The main character is borderline lost when this begins and gets worse due to the circumstances he is dealt. You can see some morality and kindness still in there somewhere, but you also start to see that dissipate and, for me, that was a heartbreaker to watch until, sadly, something awful occurs that causes his eyes to open. It's awful what he learns, but it helps him regain some morality while perhaps helping destroy much of the rest of his life. That latter sentence is speculation, but the ending, purposely unclear, doesn't imply a better future, but whatever it is, he awaits its inevitability. Most of the characters in this are unpleasant people or worse, but all the performances are honest, mostly ugly and realistic. Matej Zemljic is the film's focal point and it's a quiet performance, but he grows on you and is effective. This is a tough watch with an ending that almost fulfills you on a retribution level, but nevertheless it's wrong no matter how you guiltily appreciate it in your gut.

Nifty little film about a tragic event along with a major and one of a kind television event that in its own inadvertent way caused the tragic event to become worse. The tragic event is the terrorist murders during the 1972 Summer Olympics. The TV event was that sports broadcasters were the ones to cover such a tragedy. This is shown from the viewpoint of those inside the sports rooms telecasting the Olympics. It is very realistic in every way. Not to take anything away from the director, Tim Fehlbaum, this kind of looks like a Kathryn Bigelow film. No nonsense, tension throughout, political with no holding back. It's short, perhaps too short as some things could have used some fleshing out. The cast is outstanding giving frantic realistic performance at every turn. Most impressive is the primary focal point played by John Magaro. He is just perfect as he also was in the recent wonderful Past Lives playing a very different kind of character. He's been around for a while, but never so prominently to me. I look forward to whatever he does next. I also enjoyed Leonie Benesch who I very coincidentally just watched in a 8 episode series called The Swarm and I thought she was even more outstanding in that.

This is not a film for everyone, but for those who like realistic no nonsense films absent of "filler" material you might want to give it a try.

I'd only seen this once when it was released in 1991, 34 years ago. I remembered quite a bit of it, which says something in itself. It's a clever piece, very well written about two incredibly vile serial killers and the somewhat novice FBI agent who interviews one in a high security prison run by an egomaniac so unpleasant that when it appears he may get his comeuppance, you oddly don't mind if he does. She also finds the other one while alone in his house in the most tense portion of the film. This is exciting and interesting from start to finish, but it's mostly very smart. So many first think of Anthony Hopkins as the imprisoned madman, but this is really Jodie Foster's film. She's in most of the film and deserved that Oscar. Also deserving of his Oscar is, of course, Hopkins, who is extremely memorable, but looking at it now, one cannot help but wonder why he was even nominated in this category as his role is so small. He has very little screen time. Directed by the very talented Jonathan Demme this is often called the first horror film to win an Oscar, but it's not a true horror film. It's a very well written drama about some horrific men. There's a fair amount of sexism in this film, but it's needed. It's called honesty.