I will not disagree with the substance of the reviews my fellow unpaid reviewers of IMDb have written; this is in fact, a touching film about stubborn men. I do however dispute that such a film has any place outside an art festival.
Rams is the story of two icelandic brothers, Gummi and Kiddi (i kiddi you not), who have not spoke to each other for 40 years; the film makes it plenty clear that they resent each other (for whatever unknown reason), even going as far as one of the two shooting the other's windows out with a shotgun.
After a yearly sheep pageant, with Kiddi's ram taking first prize, the jealous Gummi goes to inspect the ram, and he finds it has scrapie, a deadly disease similar to Mad Cow disease.
Most of the rest of the film is the community's struggle with the impending loss of their sheep, which is understandable since sheep represent their only reason of living. During this struggle, there are attempts at reconciliation between the two brothers, which finally culminate in a brief ending where human emotion prevails.
Right;
I find this cookie cutter script to be far below my standard for Un Certain Regard prize material, and even though the film is reasonably well executed, there is not much to make it interesting enough to tie up one and a half hours of runtime. Sadly, it falls victim to the trailer test: cut off the film's ending, attach it to the trailer, and voilà' - you have most of the film's content in 3 minutes.
I would not recommend Hrútar (Rams); the bland icelandic vistas are sure to impress the millionaires who preside of the Cannes festival, but are nothing special if you've been outside of the city in these last 30 years. The characters are simple, the plot is minimalistic, with nothing to fill in. If you are looking for a burst of human emotion, you'll have to sit through an entire film of 90 minutes for what you could have gotten from a spoilered review.
Not surreal, not touching, not visionary, my final vote for Rams : 5/10
Rams is the story of two icelandic brothers, Gummi and Kiddi (i kiddi you not), who have not spoke to each other for 40 years; the film makes it plenty clear that they resent each other (for whatever unknown reason), even going as far as one of the two shooting the other's windows out with a shotgun.
After a yearly sheep pageant, with Kiddi's ram taking first prize, the jealous Gummi goes to inspect the ram, and he finds it has scrapie, a deadly disease similar to Mad Cow disease.
Most of the rest of the film is the community's struggle with the impending loss of their sheep, which is understandable since sheep represent their only reason of living. During this struggle, there are attempts at reconciliation between the two brothers, which finally culminate in a brief ending where human emotion prevails.
Right;
I find this cookie cutter script to be far below my standard for Un Certain Regard prize material, and even though the film is reasonably well executed, there is not much to make it interesting enough to tie up one and a half hours of runtime. Sadly, it falls victim to the trailer test: cut off the film's ending, attach it to the trailer, and voilà' - you have most of the film's content in 3 minutes.
I would not recommend Hrútar (Rams); the bland icelandic vistas are sure to impress the millionaires who preside of the Cannes festival, but are nothing special if you've been outside of the city in these last 30 years. The characters are simple, the plot is minimalistic, with nothing to fill in. If you are looking for a burst of human emotion, you'll have to sit through an entire film of 90 minutes for what you could have gotten from a spoilered review.
Not surreal, not touching, not visionary, my final vote for Rams : 5/10