Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas

In this day and age of fast scenes and bloody gore, apparently this movie left some critics calling it dull and lifeless. Not me.

The measured pace was right for this film. It's simplicity was correct and fitted the era. By simplicity, I mean the lack of 'Hollywood-ised' scenes that we're used to seeing about peasants, barons and queens.

If you're a thinking person who enjoy very good actors, a movie that travels at a pace that reflects an actual story about human beings, social justice and conflicts, irony and dilemma, the stuff of life, this is a powerful and intense drama.

As always, anyone who fights for what is right, is never seen in a perfect shade of black or white.

AGE OF UPRISING: THE LEGEND OF MICHAEL KOHLHAAS is an interesting film about a mini revolution that took place in historical France. It's often a beautifully shot film, breathtakingly so at times, and it features a typically strong performance from Mads Mikkelsen in the lead role. Mikkelsen plays a sympathetic figure, a man who becomes oppressed to the extent that he has no choice but to fight back.

The problem with AGE OF UPRISING is that it goes out of its way to be as slow and arty as is humanly possibly. There's an hour's worth of plotting and incident dragged out to two hours, and boy, does it drag. Each scene plays out for far too long, and everything seems to be deliberately subdued and painstakingly detailed. Now, I do appreciate all of the lovely scenery, and having seen this in high definition I can say it's a visually stunning film.

But movies are about more than the visuals, and in that respect AGE OF UPRISING disappoints. The traditional storyline is a familiar one and nothing much happens that hasn't been seen elsewhere. In the end you can only sit back and enjoy it to a degree - and roles for the likes of Bruno Ganz help - but without getting more fully invested in a more involving movie.

A very long and sometimes tedious film, but it was shot extremely cool and beautifully. 6 stars for the excellent performance of Mads Mikkelsen and the beautiful landscapes of France. The movie will appeal to fans of a calm and peaceful film, despite the fact that the movie is about the war and it seems like there should be an action, it is not here. A long and beautiful story. The perfect movie for Mads Mikkelsen. A strong and colorful character, if their relationship with their daughter was revealed to the end, then the movie would be even better. In general, this is the perfect movie to watch on a weekend when you want to watch a calm movie without crazy plot twists.

French films dealing with medieval events tend to be romantic, adventurous and beautiful, with colourful costumes, picturesque landscapes and magnificent dwellings. The story around Michael Kohlhaas is originally German, so is the book, that is why it is difficult to comprehend why the French became interested in this. The result is a joint French-German drama (well, I even recognised some German actors in small roles) where the French language is aggravating rather than supplementing - at least for me. The run is slow, the environment is ugly, there are a few twists, thus I started to focus on acting very soon. Of course, Mads Mikkelsen (a Dane!) is great as usual, and as far I understood, his French was very good (true, he is often employed in foreign films, I have seen him speaking Swedish, English, German as well throughout the film). Other performances seemed a bit arid to me - apparently due to the characters - and, all in all, the film in question caused ambivalent feelings; there was a lot of inner profundity, but the course of events seemed perfunctory. But fans of Mikkelsen will not be disappointed as there are a few scenes without his presence only.

I gave this a 5 mostly for technique because that is the strongest point of the film. The film is an encyclopedic article as filmed by an art-house director- at least that was my impression. While the characters had legitimate, sympathetic motivations, and there were a couple of interesting discussions, there was no theme, no thrust, no spirit or spin. The ending is a fizzling out. Mads Mikkelsen, as always, can make anything seem profound, even though he only gets a line per twenty minutes of horse visuals- on the other hand, the horses were beautiful! Lol.

My rec: watch this if you really have time to waste, I've certainly seen worse, but don't believe the title, "age of uprising." That implies action. This is a quiet classic or art-house-style flick.