The ideas behind the story and the movie seem very noble - to bring to attention the horrors of war. For that we have story, eyewitnesses, victims, high press coverage and it all happened in recent history. However, something that was an ideal setting for a humanist drama is corrupted by many flaws.
Cinematography is frankly very bad. It's on par with home movies. There is little feel to the pictures you see and they do not deliver the feelings that are behind the script. Unless you lived though that particular horror, this movie will not spark any passionate feelings. It's literally like watching a documentary of wildlife. In short, the picture lacks any feel to it.
Direction was ordinary at best. A few emotion filled moments were apparent, yet the cinematography failures just wiped it off the face of the picture.
Quite a lot of CG, yet it's not an action movie. It just kills any underlying messages. Though the CG was very good by itself.
The story is over-politicized. Though I don't think that there is anything wrong to portray a single side of a conflict, I do have a lot of issues when that side is very political. It has very clear tendencies, that result in some strange plot "twists". Some make sense, some don't. Like in all stories the politics just covers up the human side. It's no wonder that the story has tendencies, since quite a lot of Georgians worked on the movie. Sometimes such composition of crew results in a highly emotional and expressive movie. Yet this time those personal connections are lost along the way, giving way to the political aspect of the story.
The Georgians that were close to the conflict will feel emotional towards the movie and will relate in some way. People that were far away will not see through the political veil and fail to relate to hardships and suffering of ordinary people.
Cinematography is frankly very bad. It's on par with home movies. There is little feel to the pictures you see and they do not deliver the feelings that are behind the script. Unless you lived though that particular horror, this movie will not spark any passionate feelings. It's literally like watching a documentary of wildlife. In short, the picture lacks any feel to it.
Direction was ordinary at best. A few emotion filled moments were apparent, yet the cinematography failures just wiped it off the face of the picture.
Quite a lot of CG, yet it's not an action movie. It just kills any underlying messages. Though the CG was very good by itself.
The story is over-politicized. Though I don't think that there is anything wrong to portray a single side of a conflict, I do have a lot of issues when that side is very political. It has very clear tendencies, that result in some strange plot "twists". Some make sense, some don't. Like in all stories the politics just covers up the human side. It's no wonder that the story has tendencies, since quite a lot of Georgians worked on the movie. Sometimes such composition of crew results in a highly emotional and expressive movie. Yet this time those personal connections are lost along the way, giving way to the political aspect of the story.
The Georgians that were close to the conflict will feel emotional towards the movie and will relate in some way. People that were far away will not see through the political veil and fail to relate to hardships and suffering of ordinary people.