Quite wonderful, really! Having first enjoyed the film and treasured its brave mix of elements, themes and cinematic styles, I checked the "External Reviews" section, only to find out that most critics (well, American ones, anyway) had found the film: a. confusing, or b. even more confusing. Makes you wonder why these guys end up as film critics. If something that's simultaneously this entertaining and challenging makes them yawn - well, someone here must have misunderstood the point of filmmaking altogether. Not that this is necessarily a flawless film, but I can't but admire Chelsom's strength of vision and courage in executing it. To me, this is one of the very few examples of magical realism in the movies that really works!
Reviews
2 Reviews
The Ogre
(1996)
Glorious failure?
14 December 1998
Interesting film! Such a wealth of crucial questions, great performances - and yet, the final cohesion remains lacking here. The paradox of the enchantment of Nazism has been too little problematized in the cinema, and any attempt to say anything new on the subject is welcome. Schlöndorff does a cinematically good work, but where the film falters is in the way actual, brutal history and Abel's vision of Nazism as the Magic Kingdom are bound together. It's hard to pinpoint where the fault lies; there's just a sense of maybe trying too much at once. Anyway, an honorable and perhaps too multi-layered analysis of the 20th century nightmare.
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