4/10
Czech WWII drama directed by Jan Nemec
13 October 2022
Two young men escape from a prisoner transport train on their way to a concentration camp. They try to survive in the dense woods, but the unforgiving terrain forces them back to civilization.

I started out enjoying this film. It's lack of dialogue (very little is spoken for much of the runtime), handheld camerawork, and harsh locations were innovative and compelling. However, as the film progressed I grew tired of the lack of narrative and the tedious experimental-film-style digressions, in the form of quick jumps for a few seconds, to what I am assuming were supposed to be the random thoughts and memories of one or both protagonists. By the film's third act, wherein a large band of elderly and doddering German citizens awkwardly chase the duo through the forest, the whole thing had fallen apart for me, and became laughable and pretentious. As usual, many or most will disagree with me, as this is another critically acclaimed "masterpiece" that I failed to connect with and/or fully comprehend. It's only 67 minutes long.
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