Combat (2006) User Reviews

technicaly, an irretrievable mess. artistically, fascinating

[cinerix · 7/10 · 7 November 2018]

Before saying anything else, the version of this film posted here (and free on Youtube) is a mess. The sound is catastrophically out of sync with the picture. It starts of just a couple of seconds off, but by the end it is at least a minute discrepancy! Therefore an exasperating, grating experience. Sloppy, careless technical work to say the least. Having said that the film (if one could actually experience it as it was intended) is a very artistic and beautifully sensitive treatment of a very serious subject: sadomasochism. If the very idea offends you, don't watch it. The subject is always so sensationalized by the pron industry and the press that the fact it is a real and serious approach to intimacy for some people has never, to my knowledge, been portrayed with such tenderness and real thought as here. It hasn't a single thing to do with the Blair Witch Project, as one arrogant reviewer tires to assert. It is a film made with a hand held camera, very deliberately emphasizing the idea that it is something intimate, even private, that happened to get captured on video. The pace is very slow at times, very intense at others, and there are too many long long shots of moody clouds and moon at night. But if you are non-judgemental enough to watch a film that treats a very difficult subject with sensitivity and compassion, then it's very worth a watch. That is, if it is ever released in a version in which the fatally flawed sound is repaired!

The blur bitch project

[dertilee · 1/10 · 23 September 2006]

I saw this "film" recently at the Athens International Film Festival. Ordinarily i wouldn't mind its tediousness, blurriness, pompous post-dogma style of cheapness mixed with half baked structuralist psychological ravings but... But it has received the prestigious Teddy film award at the Berlin Film Festival and i wonder; What exactly did they have in mind when they gave it to a non-film ? what is so poetic or deep about shaken images looking like they were taken with a mobile phone video camera? Should we all go out and make our own mobile videos? i have a great idea about the Blair witch returning to haunt and spank art video directors.

why filming something like that?

[piterpan · 1/10 · 23 September 2006]

there is not a single reason for watching this movie. why to have this experience since nothing is happening for 1 hour and the 2 male characters are running in the woods just fighting and hitting each other?! i couldn't care less if this is art.... the director must wanted to do something only for himself and not for the audience. what are the criteria that this movie won the teddy jury award? Was it the directing? the montage? or the acting of the 2 male actors? for one hour u listen one of them (voice off) telling a story about his lover and how they met. So? the film is based on a book, and i am sure that the power from the book is all lost at the adaption from the big screen.

If It's Stupid Call It Art

[dmoorejdrf · 1/10 · 23 June 2021]

It's really sad when someone produces something this stupid, labels it Art and then gets an award......showing just how stupid judges are! There was nothing artistic about this movie and it is an insult writers who truly tell a story creatively with artistic overtones. "Bravo, bravo! I don't know what the hell this movie is about so it must be Art!" There was absolutely no character development, way too many wasted scenes of moving clouds, a narrative that did not have anything to do with the scene, just two guys that loved to beat each other up to show their love for one another! Both male characters were extremely attractive but that did not make up for the bad, bad script.