The Maus

And this is one of them.

I kinda got what the director was trying to say and it does work in certain aspects but the film is too dark , depressing and slow.

It is quite visceral and while there isn't a lot of gore and much is left to the imagination, it is in the vein of torture porn akin to movies like Hostel.

It started off quite well and seemed an original setting in Bosnia but the pace is turgid and the lack of subtitles does have a slightly negative effect on the viewer and I speak Slovak and Czech and could understand some of what was being said, it still was annoying and confusing to not know exactly what is being said at times and I know the director was using this for effect but it did not work in my opinion!

Its definitely not a 1 or 2 out of 10 as many of the other reviewers have said but then you cannot legislate for the crash, bang, wallop expectations of the pea brained reviewers who cannot seem to delve into the deeper elements of the subject and story the director was trying to put forth! The acting also was not bad , particularly from the female lead; i though she was excellent contrary once again to all the other reviewers who gave it a poor 1 out of 10 which means its the worst movie you have ever seen which it definitely is not; we have movies like "THE BAD BATCH" for that!

The Maus is one these films in which the location serves to create a meaningful part of the overall discomforting mood. As always, it comes with all sorts of supporting (or unsupportive from the protagonists' perspective) features, such as no cellular reception and a language barrier. While I'm not a fan of using these particular defining aspects, I must admit that including the female protagonist's obvious (and completely understandable) PTSD after surviving the Serbian cleansing of Bosnian Muslims added a lot of character and quality to the story.

The plot is quite simple to understand from the film's description (and from watching the first ten minutes). Selma (Alma Terzic) and her boyfriend Alex (August Wittgenstein) visit Bosnia and become stranded and lost in one of its vast forests, which happens to be riddled with unmarked mine fields. By chance they happen to meet two "local" Serbs, Vuk (Aleksandar Seksan) and Milos (Sanin Milavic), who offer to assist them. From that point - reality and paranoia become mixed and intertwined as Selma initially distrusts the two on account of their origin, seeing in them the same type of people who murdered her family during the war.

The acting is quite impressive (especially by Seksan and Milavic whose performance keeps the audience guessing as to their true intentions and nature and Selma's sanity) and the story progresses in a very compelling way. Each and every scene seems to have been meticulously chosen to serve the film's conclusion and final plot twist (which isn't brilliant but definitely serves as a fine and terrible closure). While in no way "fun" to watch - The Maus is pretty rewarding for Horror fans who enjoy being depressed by human nature and what we can at times bring ourselves to do to our fellow man.

All in all, The Maus is far from being a masterpiece and none of its features are delivered in an overly impressive manner. It's simple enough and does a pretty decent job in toying with the audience's thoughts and emotions (which I assume was the creators' initial goal). Nothing fancy, yet quite rewarding by its own right. I don't think it deserves the low rating and all the harsh criticism it has received here (now there's a surprise), but you could still find something better (or a lot worse) to watch.

This is one of those movies where you ask yourself what the heck is going on throughout the entire film. Why are in the forest in the first place? What's with the fog? What's with the creatures? What's with that terroristic ending? I mean I don't know what was worse about the movie. It has really slow pacing and characters you find hard to like except for the main girl since she's easy on the eyes. Her boyfriend is a complete wimp that has her do the dirty work he should be doing to protect her. The film really isn't all that likeable it's just odd. It tries to be too poetic and just comes off as weird.

This movie is certainly a lot of the following:

• waiting for something to happen
• back of heads
• veeery blurry background with important scenes
• black screens
• scenes with spinning camera
• mines

All in all 90 minutes of wasted time if you ask me.

Firstly, let me start with some positives. I thought the theme of the film was interesting, to do with land mines and the Bosnian War, and presumably atrocities and genocidal acts. I have to say before watching it I did not know much about what I was about to watch. I have to say I was mislead to believe it was Horror, but in actual fact it feels more like a Dark Thriller with themes of Horror and War i.e. there was clearly a Deliverance vibe going on at the start, and aside from the creepy looking Guardian Angel that would be about where the horror side of things ends.

The filming style was fun for the first few minutes, but an hour and a half later of revolving cameras, darkness, and behind the head shots it all seemed a bit ridiculous and you wonder how a supposed 2 million euro budget (according to Wikipedia) was used up on just 4 actors, a forest and a great deal of what I can only describe as pointless videography.

Without trying to slate it too much, I found 'Alex' to be fairly unbearable, as an overly dramatic naive young chap who was an insufferable wannabe man-to-the-rescue but simply lacked any strength both physically and of character; Extremely annoying in every way possible. I think 'Selma' was at least interesting and played her role well though unfortunately this leads me on to my next comment about The Story, which overall I can once again only describe as being fairly 'pointless' or insubstantial. There were some interesting psychological moments where it felt like the dread was closing in, but then once the cat was out of the bag there wasn't much left to say. I knew from the moment I saw the car 'stuck' in the road in the very first scene that this movie was not exactly going to win any Oscars. I really am surprised about the budget here and can only presume the directors paid themselves substantial salaries through some questionable laundering function - But seriously, overall it wasn't the worst thing that's ever happened to me, and certainly illuminating in some regards. I think a 5/10 is generous, I'd say more like a 4.5 but I suppose I've rounded up.

One more comment: I saw that 'Maus' according to Wikipedia is an 80s/early 90s graphic novel about a Holocaust survivor, so I suppose that's what would have inspired the name of this movie.

Thank you for reading.