A German drifter arrives in a village in Luxembourg looking for work on a farm. He finds work. He works hard. He meets a girl. They have sex. Several times. He meets a dog too. Thankfully, he doesn't have sex with the dog. For half of the run time of this movie - that's the story. That's it. For a movie that bills itself as a "thriller" - there are no thrills in that first half of the movie. Literally none. I'll concede that there's some mystery. Who is this drifter? Why is he there? Really? There's more to this than him looking for work. That mystery gets cleared up at about the halfway point when we learn who Jens is and why he's in the village. And the village itself it a strange one with strange people who apparently shoot amateur porn on the side when they're not harvesting corn.
At that halfway point the movie does begin to take a bit of a darker turn, and as it progresses you begin to wonder what the mix is between fantasy and reality - and I confess I was left wondering whether the whole thing was a fantasy played out in Jens' head. The last scenes of the movie seemed ambiguous; confusing. I was left with a sense that there was no real closure involved with this and questioning what was "real."
It's rated highly. I have to give it that. Sometimes, though, I really do believe that people have a tendency to rate foreign language films highly because they're foreign language films - almost as if it's a sign of being cultured. And, of course, you start to see reviewers talking about the "great cinematography" - because what else are you going to talk about to justify rating it so highly? And there was some great cinematography here - some beautiful shots of rural Luxembourg. But it really didn't make up for a confusing and rather bland story. (2/10)
At that halfway point the movie does begin to take a bit of a darker turn, and as it progresses you begin to wonder what the mix is between fantasy and reality - and I confess I was left wondering whether the whole thing was a fantasy played out in Jens' head. The last scenes of the movie seemed ambiguous; confusing. I was left with a sense that there was no real closure involved with this and questioning what was "real."
It's rated highly. I have to give it that. Sometimes, though, I really do believe that people have a tendency to rate foreign language films highly because they're foreign language films - almost as if it's a sign of being cultured. And, of course, you start to see reviewers talking about the "great cinematography" - because what else are you going to talk about to justify rating it so highly? And there was some great cinematography here - some beautiful shots of rural Luxembourg. But it really didn't make up for a confusing and rather bland story. (2/10)