White God

White God received great praise at Cannes in 2014, an indie film from my own country, Hungary. Naturally, I was excited so see it. Unfortunately, it failed to become anything other than forgettable, in my mind.

While not a bad movie, the main problem is the little but numerous issues that drag the whole movie down. But positives first: -The film has a great opening sequence. -Despite lacking acting at times, the characters actually have character. -Some great musical cues. -A few select, genuinely well done performances. -A technically impressive finale, that broke some world records I won't spoil here. -A solid, well done message. -Pretty good pacing throughout.

All sounds great so far, right? Unfortunately, the movie struggles to keep a positive momentum for long, as numerous issues hinder it: -The main character often underacted scenes, completely ruining them. Child actors are infamous in movies, and for good reason, and this one, even if she is above average, does not escape being a bad actor in certain moments. -Some of the action scenes feel completely out of place, and to top it all off, have lacking camera-work. I'm talking about the shaky, quick- cut type of film-making that is sadly all too common these days. -Some stylistic choices regarding the audio mixing feel completely pointless, made only to increase the film's "artsy" factor. -Despite praising the finale's technical proudness, the things happening on-screen are indeed ridiculous and unrealistic. This wouldn't be a problem, if the script had any self-awareness. It doesn't. -Some scenes are completely devoid of logic. one spoiler-free example is when out main character convinces her father to go to work, and he immediately leaves the apartment and takes off to work, without changing clothes or any preparations. - A horribly executed club scene, that has the characters talking at silent room levels, but still able to hear each other clearly despite being in a supposedly loud bar. It's stuff like this that solidifies this as an amateur project. -Many more mistakes that I won't mention because I respect your time, dear reader.

In closing, this is not a bad movie, and like with all movies, I urge you to see it and make your own opinions on it. I, however, expected a lot more. This one gets a 6/10.