loveyourlife

I stumbled upon this by chance and saw that it had been banned on release. I took a chance on the DVD, which if you get it is of pristine picture and audio quality; and what a revelation the film turned out to be. I agree with some of the other reviewers, this must have been where Kusturica got his inspiration for 'Underground.' The acting is superb across the board and as the mayhem escalates, so does the cleverness and general franticness of the cinematography - the whole thing is so tight and nothing, incredibly, seems forced. Another reviewer has remarked on the low technical elements of the film, I must admit, I didn't notice them. It's clearly a product of its time but holds up very well (I watched it in the tail end of 2020.) Lucian Pintilie is one of the giants of Romanian cinema and from the ones I've seen, this is probably his masterpiece. Seek it out, you're in for a special treat.

Thanks to a mix of Game of Thrones and ISIS in equal measure, excessive gratuitous violence and gore, bordering on torture porn, seem to substitute for narrative and character development. The script is passable but will be forgotten 6 months down the line. And does Mark Gatiss, as undoubtedly talented as he is, need to be in every single programme these days? This feels like it's chasing global Netflix-era ratings than any sort of critical credibility. Not sure I will or even want to make it to Episode 2...