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10/10
A devastating but hugely important film
7 May 1999
A devastating film which shows the social degeneration of Belgrade, subjected to nearly ten years of conflict. Values normally taken for granted have little meaning, especially to young people who have spent all their formative years in a country rocked by instability and near social anarchy. Violence has lost its extreme nature by becoming an everyday occurrence.

The film is shockingly violent, grim and realistic in tone, occasionally descending into the realms of the grotesque. It particularly shows the link between aggression and the male psyche, the threat of sexual violence being equally prominent. Practically nobody is exempt from the fever of madness which sweeps over the city. Consequently, individuals no longer take responsibility for their actions and guilt becomes oblique and collective, which is of course when the atrocities of history happen. A hugely important film.
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Gertrud (1964)
10/10
Scandinavian sombreness has rarely been so devastatingly effective.
26 March 1999
Dreyer's final film views as a testament to idealism, the desire to put love above everything else in life and the cruel reality which thwarts this. Gertrud is married to a wealthy lawyer, about to become a minister. However material wealth is all he can offer and spiritually she is starved. >

With a theatrical set-piece style characterized by long takes, Dreyer creates an intense and involving atmosphere. Passions are seen as the formative experiences in life in a society stifled by convention. Gertrud prefers nothing to having second best, she refuses to compromise her ideals. She resigns herself to a single life but retains in her mind the vibrancy of her chain of lost loves. A moving portrait of a strong woman. Scandinavian sombreness has rarely been so devastatingly effective.
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