Reviews

Very mixed... The director apparently couldn't make up his mind whether to make a goofy East-European Kusturica-like comedy, or a high-brow movie of redemption through music. So he made both at the same time.

There are a lot of jokes for the very low brow, and way too many clichés and moments where I had to cover my eyes in dismay at the horribly bad taste (the Russian mobster wedding, the gypsy, Russian & Jewish clichés, the Russian mafioso's mother etc).

Melanie Laurent saves the day, though. And in the end it does come out at the other end as a story of redemption through music, but I just wish the director had chosen to tell it with delicate humor instead...

Much as I hate to see personal heroes go down, this was a letdown in every way.

I'm betting that just about everything filmed in slo-mo, black&white & set to a classical tune is likely to seem wonderful. It's such a cheap trick! How can people say that the prologue is wonderful/brilliant etc, when it's a mere legerdemain of the lowest kind? I mean, get together a cute baby, a washing machine and a couple having explicit sex, and you have not a brilliant scene, but a brainless, comfortable attempt at stirring emotion. Bah.

In fact, the entire movie suffers from a lack of creativity: the ominous atmosphere is suggested by heavy fog (I mean fog machines), a fox speaks (everybody burst out laughing, no wonder!), a crow refuses to die despite being hit over the head repeatedly. How much must we suffer for von Trier's shortage of original artistic vision!

As for the rest, a friend explained it had to do with seeing women as intrinsically threatening because of their sexual drive. I recommend Odishon for that - more intelligent, less cheap.