The State of Shock (2011) User Reviews

Witty, Entertaining

[david-mich1965 · 9/10 · 3 January 2013]

The movie starts with a nice overview of the current events of 1986, setting the stage for the later part of the film. The scenography is very well prepared, much like in earlier Kosak's movie, The Outsider. He pays attention to detail and younger generations could benefit from the veracity (props) with which he portrays the 1980s, especially since the socialist regime is a thing of the past nowadays.

The movie's punchline can be seen twice - throughout the movie as the main character finds himself in strange (capitalist system) situations where it is obvious that earlier values of honesty, work, friendship, .. don't mean a thing, and at the end of the movie, when the main character holds a speech in which he denounces "this alienated capitalist system" which he does not want to be a part of. The message of the movie is very much interesting for today's situation. I sincerely hope Kosak makes some more movies which take place in the old socialist system since that provides entertainment as well as a deeper insight, thanks to Kosak's attention to detail.

Funny and interesting

[proftranslator · 9 July 2012]

The film is sometimes a little poorly filmed, but the dialogs and the incredible realism of the situation (not the one about the coma, but of Slovenian society) make this film a little Goodbye Lenin of the Balkans: the communist worker waking up after ten years of "day-dreaming" just to find out that his world has disappeared. I reckon the plot is in the end a little too simple, he's like a superhero and so on...that's not what I'm talking about. The movie gives the sensation of being in Yugoslavia and shows the mentality of an enthusiastic worker that really believes in socialism. And as I talked with some Yugoslavian friends, it is pretty accurate too: a Macedonian girl told me that she has her childhood in the movie.

So my opinion is that Slovenian Can do better, but this is already a good movie.

pathetic and not funny at all

[TomBeno · 2/10 · 14 November 2012]

This film starts as a promising satire and good comedy, but by the time its first 30 minutes go by, one gets a deeply embarrassed feeling from the naive acting of almost all main protagonists, and, which is worse, from the director's ubiquitous message that capitalism is all bad and socialism/communism was all good. The ending is so pathetic that I first thought the director just wanted to make fun of the audience, but considering he is now 47 years old, it just might be that he truly and deeply believes in what his film is saying... It actually feels as if the director was some king of 70+ pensioner (no offense intended) utterly unable to cope with the fact that the world has changed, thus unable to see his own mistake.

It is a real shame, since the idea and the topic, although not original at all (Goodbye Lenin), offers a plethora of situations and characters through which a filmmaker can reflect on the transformation of a socialist/communist society into a 'modern' one with free trade and capitalism in general... This movie is especially annoying to anyone who has lived during the previous oppressive regime, since its entire 92 minutes portray modern-world capitalism as nothing but rotten, while the hardships of socialist/communist era are presented with pathetic nostalgia as being incomparably better to what has come after them... After the final scene, I realised I never laughed during the entire film, even though the director clearly wanted me to... The complete lack of any traces of a realistic view of modern society makes this film a true waste of money – both on the part of audience, as well as its produces.

Not funny, but ridiculous...

[StalkerV81 · 19 November 2011]

A decent working guy who wakes up after 10 years from a coma (of some kind…?) and finds himself in a different political system he cannot quite comprehend. This refers to the transition of communism in former Yugoslavia and independent Slovenia. A topic quite worn out, but… OK, worth to give it a shut.

I deeply regret entering the cinema and watching this semi-amateur, wanna-be professional film. One can not detach which segment of the film is worse, whether is the poor, explicit lines which the hopelessly casted protagonists deliver just to have justification for the boring, predictable story, or the technical aspects of directing and cinematography that strongly resemble Spanish soap operas from the 90-ties. If this is the future for the Balkan cinematography, then it's time for a cruel reality check. Insulting viewers intelligence by trying to throw in some cheap feeling of nostalgia and little intimate family comedy acts, is inadmissible. One thing that slightly stands out from the whole tragedy is the main character, who occasionally manages to extort a few sympathies, but trust me, that's all