I ignored IMDb's rating and just watched this hoping it'd be a good film. I was very disappointed. The story seemed interesting and it seemed at first as if it had many undertones and little stories and details—even a certain poetry—, but soon it was all simplified and followed a slow, distant rhythm like some sort of thriller and I started losing interest in the character and his situation.
I could say most of the actors were great, especially Michael Lonsdale, but the rest, including Tahar Rahim, carried a considerable emotional weight throughout the movie, but merely on the surface; it didn't create deep connections with other characters or situations, and that's also how most scenes were.
I can't help to blame the director and the script for all this. The photography was great and the art direction, as well, even when the color palette is extremely rehashed nowadays, because it wasn't distractive and helped create a certain atmosphere. I think the director wanted to create a very epic film—considering it was filmed in 10 weeks in France and Morocco—with a lot of tension and character development, but for some reason, everything ended up cut into bits of it and some under-layers of the story came to the surface and they became so explicit they appear as banal and forced, separating bit by bit from whatever was supposed to be the main truth of this film.
It seemed like the movie was approached from the wrong angle and carried out with the wrong sensitivity and vision, because I fail to understand what it really was about and the concluding texts at the end only make me reinforce everything I have said since I almost didn't bother to read them. But it caught my attention the homage intention of them and it made me rethink of the whole movie again from that perspective. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything new and nothing appeared to have an extra value. If this was a movie about friendship or fighting for a cause, I don't understand why I didn't feel such weight, such connections, such struggle and such sacrifice, because, as I saw it, the characters weren't really risking anything or nothing that mattered to them anyway; when they tried to do noble acts, they looked more like they were just doing it for the hell of it as if they had nothing else better to do.
Instead of seeing "Free Men" in this film, I saw empty men with no passion, no desire whatsoever for life. Stereotypes and victims with no will of their own.
I could say most of the actors were great, especially Michael Lonsdale, but the rest, including Tahar Rahim, carried a considerable emotional weight throughout the movie, but merely on the surface; it didn't create deep connections with other characters or situations, and that's also how most scenes were.
I can't help to blame the director and the script for all this. The photography was great and the art direction, as well, even when the color palette is extremely rehashed nowadays, because it wasn't distractive and helped create a certain atmosphere. I think the director wanted to create a very epic film—considering it was filmed in 10 weeks in France and Morocco—with a lot of tension and character development, but for some reason, everything ended up cut into bits of it and some under-layers of the story came to the surface and they became so explicit they appear as banal and forced, separating bit by bit from whatever was supposed to be the main truth of this film.
It seemed like the movie was approached from the wrong angle and carried out with the wrong sensitivity and vision, because I fail to understand what it really was about and the concluding texts at the end only make me reinforce everything I have said since I almost didn't bother to read them. But it caught my attention the homage intention of them and it made me rethink of the whole movie again from that perspective. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything new and nothing appeared to have an extra value. If this was a movie about friendship or fighting for a cause, I don't understand why I didn't feel such weight, such connections, such struggle and such sacrifice, because, as I saw it, the characters weren't really risking anything or nothing that mattered to them anyway; when they tried to do noble acts, they looked more like they were just doing it for the hell of it as if they had nothing else better to do.
Instead of seeing "Free Men" in this film, I saw empty men with no passion, no desire whatsoever for life. Stereotypes and victims with no will of their own.