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olgailicheva
Reviews
Outlander: Do No Harm (2018)
Powerful
The ending left me shivering and slack-jawed. Didn't know one couldn't even free "their own" slaves in 1700s North Carolina. One of the most traumatic and haunting episodes of the show but for a good reason.
Sufat Chol (2016)
Impressive
A very compelling and well made film. Every shot, every line of dialogue has a putpose and adds to the multi-layered story. It is amazing how much can be told in such a short time.
On the surface, it is a story about issues women have to deal with in a traditional tribal society. But it is just as much about Suliman, the man of the family, and complex choices the family has to make for their sirvival. It is clear that Suliman has his daughters' best interests at heart and loves his first wife but he has to fit in the tribe and play by the rules because their support is all he has if tomorrow, his home gets bulldozed by the Israeli government and he ends up losing everything, the way Anwar's relatives did. This is the fate he wants Layla to avoid and when he tells her about her future husband, the only thing he cares for is that she "finds peace". Peace and security are the most important values, in his eyes. When you are a second class citizen in your own land, community/clan can sometimes be perceived as the only source and guarantee of security.
An arranged marriage is not necessarily what Suliman wants for his daughters in the first place. He wants Layla to be independant and have an education and better future, he is concerned about her grades even more than she is. But when Layla and Anwar decide to marry and he learns about Anwar's situation, he feels he has to prevent their marriage at all costs. Apart from Anwar's not yet being able to support Layla financially, the family also risks losing respect and support of their village, and he has younger daughters to provide for. It is for the same reasons, to gain favours from the community, that Suliman takes the second younger wife whom he doesn't love and doesn't sleep with. But apparently, the new wife comes from a relatively wealthy family who helped build and furnish a new house for the couple whereas Suliman's own financial situation leaves much to be desired. Jalila understands all this, both she and Suliman roll with the punches but in the end, she can't help but feel resentment and disappointment towards her husband for his lack of independence and self-respect.
Suliman believes that he has to make sacrifices for the future of his family but all it leads to is the young generation having to make sacrifices of their own, and the cycle goes on.
A Quiet Place (2018)
Good acting can't compensate for nonsensical writing
Decent acting but absolutely terrible and nonsensical script.
This movie is lauded as something intelligent, above your average horror crap with cheap jump scares and gore. Well guess what, there's not much gore here indeed but enough jump scares and zero intelligence.
When the monster (suspiciously looking much like the creature from Stranger Things) was killed by a simple gunshot to its head, I literally laughed out loud in the theatre. It was like the writer slapped me in the face for patiently sitting through this crap for 1.5 hours and thinking that yeah... these creatures must be completely indestructible if they managed to bring on such apocalypse. But no, apparently no one has tried to use the magic secret weapon - the mighty shotgun.
There are SO many ways to destroy creatures that are completely blind, have no sense of smell and are incredibly dumb to boot. But here, we are supposed to believe that humans are even dumber.
Apart from that, there are innumerable logical inconsistencies and things that don't make sense. A nail that's sticking the sharp end UP from the step, why? What genius built this staircase? The mum waiting for her due date in the house instead of camping out at the river? The family leaving a small child behind unsupervised, in a lethally dangerous situation. Who would do that? Then, as an experiment perhaps, they decide to have another.
The corn field - how did they silently plant all the corn, how are they going to harvest it?
Soundproofing a basement with a mattress, really? If the room is soundproofed enough that you can talk in it, why can't you make a little bit more effort (like pad the ceiling and walls with thick blankets or something), so that your newborn won't have to be confined to a little coffin with an oxygen mask.
The monsters can hear from miles away when you talk inside the house but can't when you breath heavily next to them. Only one is attracted to fireworks but the whole pack runs in the direction of a single gunshot.
They are completely blind and show up anywhere in 10 seconds but are unable to use echolocation - otherwise why can't they sense you moving next to them? Etc etc etc
Some reviewers say nothing in this film should be taken literally, it is some obscure metaphor. I am sorry to say, that was too much obscure. If there was any message in this, it was lost in all the absurdity.