Reviews

I understand that good reviews for this movie have been placed mostly because people expect to see something very nasty and cruel about communist regimes during cold war in Europe. But everything in this movie is dramatically overdone, overemphasized, and very badly done. We just watched some completely ridiculous scenes - everybody hates some poor Polish artist in Poland, who has no one leg and one arm, just because he said something like "the art is autonomous", nobody has a pity for him, even a woman who cooks for him or a woman who sells food, or a man who sells the paint, etc. For instance, there are some scenes where a woman who cooks for him for years denies him a plate of food, because he has no some small change to pay. Well, this is sadly typical for liberal capitalism, not for communist countries. Also, the fact that authorities threw him out of the university does not mean that immediately every cleaning lady will hate him, and leave him without food. Also it does not mean that nobody will give him any work, and nobody will make any effort to improve his situations. But in this film it is all about the misfortune of this man, it is just a straight line to poverty, and there is no any "higher meaning", or auto-reflection or catharsis in the movie. And at some point somebody says "he who does not work, does not eat in communism". Where did they hear that? This was not a communist parole at all. Communist parole was "everybody gets according to their needs", whatever it meant. But, its something completely different.

I don't understand why Wajda made this black and white unintelligent and embarrassing movie, with nothing but an anti-communist propaganda pamphlet in it. Communism was a totalitarian system with its bad doctrines and flows, but, in general, artists, writers and intellectuals were better kept and better treated in such systems than in capitalism. They had social benefits of state socialist system that did not exist in capitalist countries. They were often banned from working, that is true, but even then, they were not thrown to the streets or left without basic existence, because this is not how communist states work. They may have been imprisoned, but still, they were not left to die of starvation at the streets, beggars or homeless people were not a "thing" in communist countries. Starving when you have no work - this is typical for western capitalism, not for communist countries. So this film brings a lot of tendentious, bleak, monotonous propaganda against Poland of 1950s, and it even shows Polish people as dull, cruel, merciless, insensitive and horrible people. Really bad and offensive film without any philosophical depth (and I am not even a Polish, but was hard for me to watch).

I love this film; it has something poetic in itself. The romantic and noble villain has been portrayed really well by Val Kilmer. He fits the role perfectly. Also, it was shot at that romantic period in history when Hollywood believed that USA managed to make an alliance with the Russian official state, so they showed the western hero (The Saint) saving Russian government and civilians from an evil criminal (Serbedzija). Also, they filmed some parts in Russia (which was possible back in the time, it was still cheap). It is all romantic and fairytale-like to see all those connections: U. S., UK and Russia. And a romantic Saint who is a master of disguise. Worth seeing, as a piece of history and cinematic pleasure.

This is quite unique show about some exciting period in European recent history, with, unfortunately, quite ridiculous main character. The context story is very interesting, and a few supporting characters are really charismatic, but the protagonist, Martin, is a pointless, unbelievable, illogical creature, whose existence and doing are almost cartoon-like.

The plot in the Season one. Deutschland 1983, was sort of intriguing - he was sent to a mission in West Germany by his aunt, high intelligence officer, who recruited him to work for East Germany. He is not willing to do that, but he tries to get over with this and go back home. However, the problems in the plot started when he stops doing his tasks and starts posing as "good-doer", as somebody who has consciousness. From that point, this character looks idiotic, childish and pointless. And this is the main problem of the show. How to explain that several intelligence services want constantly to work with the guy who never does anything in the interest of his bosses?

Maybe the point was to present all intelligence services as idiots, but it did not really look so with other characters. His aunt, Lenora, and his father, Walter, looked as very serious agents throughout the entire show, and I watched the show mostly for them. Also, every woman who showed in the show falls for Martin, while he actually never shows any real emotion to anyone. He goes around, messes missions and kills or ruins bunch of people around, and everybody around behaves as if he was someone really important. In the third season, Deutschland 1989, I already laughed at every scene with him.

But the show did not really intend to show him as german type of Forest Gamp parody - it seems that the authors really believed that they did a great thing for real - created a hero. But their hero works for every intelligence, because he is too afraid to reject them, and then betrays all of them, does not do what they ask from him, but does much bigger damage and bloodshed, on his own terms. He is driven by almost Oedipal hatred towards his own aunt, for recruiting him into secret service, while he does not hate his own father, who did the same. Martin looks really like pretentious, misogynist idiot and makes the show looks idiotic at times. Especially the ending of the Deutschland 1989 (Season 3) is confusing. Why is CIA sacrificing their own people in order to protect a useless idiot who can't be trusted anything? I really did not get it. Explanation that a " spy woman from the West Germany", whom he also betrayed, is in love with him, and enables him to stay alive, is one possible solution, but really not convincing. The attempts to motivate Martin's behaviour by his love for his son is also lame. The agent who can be so easily blackmailed within two second because of his son, is laughable. Also the agent who goes to pursue his own justice, to kill whom he believes he should kill, is just a random murderer, not really a hero the show tries to present.

Also, the bad side of the show is its naivety at moments, about the entire story about German reunification, and glorifying the consumerism and freedom of movement. Now we know that the world unfortunately has not solved all people's problems by "tearing that wall". The show is very interesting occasionally, but in my opinion, ruined by the main character, and all this glorification of the "freedom in the West".

Fun film, with the ultimately wrong ending. It was cute in the beginning, then there was a typically painful unjust situation with one partner being in the closet, then there was an exciting twist - the main character meets a potentially much better partner (the ex of her lousy girlfriend), but in the end, instead of taking chance with this new great person, she goes back to her lousy girlfriend. So I believe that 89% of the viewers stay unsatisfied, and this shouldn't be the point of the Christmassy movie.

I believed in reality KStew would wait for the holidays to end, and then she would look for Aubrey Plaza's number :).

I rated this film very low because I expected a lot from it and I got too little. The film is beautifully shot in the impressive Berlin halls and interiors, together with Berlin authentic dodgy "hoffs" (courtyards), half-ruined style of apartments, shabby parks, etc. The female performances are all right - Blanchett, Hoss, Merlant...However the script is weak, pretentious, at moments even pointless.

The first 35 minutes of the movie are unrelated to plot - they are just boring discussions about conducting. Then there is something which looks like a beginning of the plot. Lydia Tar is worldly renown, very important conductor with a brilliant career, which includes a whole bunch of people around her working for her and being there for her, as it is very common with highly successful and narcissistic people. She is also eccentric and often rude and inappropriate with music students and subordinates - which is also common with important people. This lifestyle also includes people who are obsessed with her, who are chasing her, while she abandons them and chases newcomers, whom she is yet to win over. So in a word, almost everything is a pure cliché.

What is a bit out of cliché is that she is lesbian, who lives with her wife and co-worker (played by German diva Nina Hoss), and adopted non-white daughter, who is maybe the only creature around her she sympathizes really with. However, not much has been gained in terms of the quality of the film from that situation. It simply looks like just a variation of a typical conventional estranged family, even strangely cold, without any elaboration of those family relationships. The predictable work environment harassment situation that comes out of all this constellation in Tar's life - develops in a predictable way. And this is it, there is not much to say further.

The film is more about the atmosphere and long shots than about any story, motif, plot. But these visuals are not enough to keep this movie interesting. It is simply boring, and it is easy to fall asleep. It is amazing how nothing big has been achieved with this exciting possibility of lesbian threesome drama - or even foursome, which probably could have been a convincing plot set in a competitive stressful professional environment, with an ambitious and hardworking group of women. Instead, the plot hangs on some vague harassment story in the background which is not interesting enough, because it happened in the past, and it only haunts Tar in the present, but it does not really bring the narrative in the film.

I can't help but assume that, in general, the film production crew wasn't ready to dive into a story about a powerful lesbian person living in a same-sex marriage and parenting a child, although seemingly they adopted Berlin as a story background, where such families are, actually, quite a common thing. Instead, they delivered a prudish film, with a minimum of human contact, where everything is covered with Blanchett's cold attitude and dry discussion on classic music, with not even enough performances of classical music. Nothing really happens in the movie, and even if we look at everything as a metaphor, this still doesn't work out. While the appearance of a new and lively Russian cellist in the orchestra at a certain point, who seems interesting to Tar because she is out of her reach, might shake up the atmosphere of the film, it actually still fails to happen.

Blanchett is a decent actress, but with this role, she did not repeat the success of Carol. I am sure that the directors find her physical appearance suitable for lesbian roles, finding her a bit androgynous looking, however, lets be honest, she is not Tilda Swinton, whose mysterious look is enough to hold the whole movie mysterious. Blanchett's deep voice in this movie is also pretentiously theatrical at moments, sounding false, and overdramatic. The biggest irony is that probably, her co-star, Nina Hoss, would have been much better choice for a lead role, with her nuanced facial expression and her filmic erratic energy. If they had switched the roles in the movie, and if the movie had got stripped of useless conversations about music technical stuff, the film could have been much less boring.

This movie has some really memorable moments, which means the directing part and occasional acting performance are really good. Unfortunately, the script is utterly naive and pointless at many points. Overall, the umbrella idea is not bad at all: we follow the petite Belgrade criminals to reveal the bigger and bigger, shocking scale of organized international crime with terrifying and well-directed scenes of violence. However, in general, the story is dull and the main character is ridiculously illogical.

In the beginning, we see Petar, a relatively normal, good-looking, moderately reasonable guy who occasionally uses his car driving and stealing talents to do pre-planned small jobs for local car mafia in Belgrade. Petar has a girlfriend, the family, he invests all his money in his passion, car race, and he looks like just someone who is unwillingly doing thefts just to be able to move into something better and more acceptable one day. And then - all of a sudden, out of nowhere he goes crazy and steals a completely unknown car in the street, against all the rules of the job, which turns out to be a mafia car with drugs, which causes complete bloodshed and disaster.

The plot is very unreasonable, because nobody in the world is so stupid to steal from mafia, and then starts blackmailing them, putting in danger his girlfriend, mother, father and little brother, and still expecting that it will be all right, mafia will pay, and nobody will be hurt. A normal, non-violent guy turns into a mad dog out of nothing and risks everybody's lives for a fee of 100 thousand euros. What could anyone do with 100 000 EUR in this world? Run forever with this money? Also, in the beginning of the movie it seems he loves his girlfriend. However, when she gets captured because of him, he is ready to let her stay in custody for ages, not thinking about her suffering at all. He comes back to save her only when he learns that she was pregnant. Big slippage in the story. Also, it never occurs him that mafia will attack his family, and he seems totally surpriced when he learns that has happened. After all, its a pure "luck" that the whole mafia business is actually controlled by corrupted police structures, who actually make a deal with Petar in the end, and put an end to the further deaths and disasters, while Peter takes all the blame and ends up in jail.

Some of the performances in the movie are really good, since the cast is really decent. In the first place, Nebojsa Glogovac is excellent playing the psychopath mafia boss, Milos Timotijevic is quite decent in the role of the corrupted police inspector, and Milos Radonjic, as a not-so-bright small criminal is a pure refreshment. As for the lead actor, Milos Bikovic, the feelings are mixed: he is an okay-ish actor, with an impressive physical appearance, but he also looks a bit unfit for the role of cold-blooded hitman. He looks like a good boy, after all. He might deliver a performance of a crazy guy occasionally, but again, if he needs to play a tough really serious criminal capable of serious murders - he simply does not really live up to such a role. He wouldn't be bad as an action hero - however, a crime business does not look so good on him. Also, Bogdan Diklic as a sadist father and Bjelogrlic like a crime chief - again a big stretch out, and not such a great choice.

In general, its an atmosphere, and not a story that might be worth seeing in this film. The max is 5 stars, good for killing a boring evening and nothing else.

This is an expensive production, however the story is very badly written. Its simply incomprehensible that someone dears to use a historically sensitive period as a background to a pretty bad and unconvincing stereotypical American thriller plot.

First, the whole idea of an American, who looks and acts like a regular clueless cowboy dude from Ohio or Texas, coming to "train" German police after the war is naive and annoying like hell. Do they imagine German police was like some kind of neighborhood watch, so any average-minded American was smarter than them?

Second, the idea of another American, a serial killer who spends days wasting his time by killing insignificant former German guards in Berlin, is so pointless and unconvincing.

Third, representing Soviet officials like some cartel people is ridiculous. Soviet Army was known as cruel to Germans while occupying Germany, but they were not mafia or criminal gangs and they had no reason or power to terrorize their western allies or German authorities established after the war. They kept their part of Berlin and they did not go to American or French or British sector, etc., that was the whole point of division of Berlin among the allies. Here it looks like they were unorderly criminals who terrorized everybody.

Fourth, it looks like every woman in after-war Berlin was forced to be a prostitute, murderer or spy... - and this is also ridiculous.

Fifth, wasting such great German actors such as Nina Hoss or Sebastian Koch in such a naive and ignorant show is a special crime.

Lastly, as someone wrote in a review, this is a show made by not very well informed Americans for other average-minded Americans, and it is actually boring to the rest of us. I stopped after a few episodes.

The 3 stars are for Koch and Hoss, otherwise it would have been 1 star max.

I enjoyed every moment of this film, and I watched it twice. Everybody in this feature is absolutely superb: F. S. Hoffman, Rachel McAdams, William Dafoe, Nina Hoss, Robin Right, Grigoriy Dobrigyn - what an international crew out here! The story is beautiful, atypical for big screen, and human. And it deconstructs the hypocrisy of secret services. A lot of moral dilemmas and human tendencies we see here. There is no wrong or right side, there are only interests and good or bad intentions that sometimes fail.

People who rate this film with a low grade, tend to do this because they are not used to seeing unpredictable plots in spy movies. Oh my god, they say, how is it possible that an American agent (Robin Right) is actually a manipulative wicked officer who only works for her career, and not a nice moral lady who is gonna fall in love with Hofmann's character? For the stereotypical viewer, this movie is annoying because they are not used to see something unusual. American secret agents are actually cruel and lying guys while some Germans are trying to do something human??!! How could this be??? C, c, c. This is what a typical western audience does not comprehend.

Seriously, really, good job, this is a spectacular movie. Let the eternal glory be with Hofmann and all others who participated in this.

I really love Pawlikowski's two movies, Cold War, and Ida, which I believe are among the biggest movies in European cinema in the last few decades. However, The Woman in the fifth is just a failure with a few beautiful shots and okay-ish idea which has been badly conducted

First of all, the story is quite clear to me. It is about very sick-minded, obviously murderous American one-book-writer who comes to Paris to stalk his ex-wife because he wants to be a part of his daughter's life, however, after falling again into his darkness, and obviously having committed a bloody murder, he gives up on seeing his daughter and voluntarily withdraws from her life, for her own good..

However, the problem is that this plot is actually not understandable until the very last second of the movie, and probably, 80% of viewers does not get what has happened even after the end of movie, so what is the point of all these slow pace and so many details in the movie when you don't really get the plot while you are watching this, and probably not even after finishing it. In other words, the script is badly constructed, over-ambitious, with various pointless details that don't really do any effect except that they are confusing, and not very original. One of the probably biggest mistake of the movie is the choice of Ethan Hawke for this role. Hawke is in general decent actor, but kind of deprived of any dark charisma needed for this role. He looks like a confused, awkward nerd next to a gorgeous Kristine Scott Thomas, and the effect is sort of off-putting. Its almost difficult to watch their love scenes. Its obvious that this awkwardness might have been the intention of the director, but it really does not work well on the screen, it is distracting in a bad way.

The other love story line, which is happening in reality (while these one with Kristine Scott Thomas's character is product of the guy's imagination), is actually equally disturbing. I have noticed that Pawlikowski really likes Joanna Kulig in his movies, and she really deserves it - she finally got her deserved main role in Cold War, and she is a real deal. However, in this movie she is completely a waste - her character is pointless, sort of just decoration on the road, and that is also to blame on Pawlikowski. Presence of the characters with no significance for the story is dragging away the attention of the viewers. It looks that film would be way better if it was told from the perspective of Kulig's character, cause at least she had some life in her, while Hawke's character looks dull and literary mind-limited from the first to the last moment of the movie.

In general, after seeing the brightness and sharpness of Ida and Cold War, I did not expect such a weak movie from Pawlikowski, but, hey, it happens even to the best ones. At least, we can say that this movie stayed in the past, while he has managed to make these other, much better movies in the recent period.

This is a very good movie, worth watching. It has a valuable point: a human face of state socialism, represented by its people, who are just a people, with all good and bad sides. Unlike many films that placed the criticism of the political system at its center, this film celebrates the human values which are above any political system. There are good reasons to do something good for others in any kind of society.

The film depicts a gloomy, unpleasant, but also impressive atmosphere of a marginal provincial East Germany town, somewhere on the north, surrounded by windy woods and close to the coast, where a brilliant, posh doctor Barbara from Berlin is being sent to work in a hospital as a punishment. We don't actually know what exactly her real crime against the state was, except that she was suspected to plan to immigrate abroad, which was not allowed at the time of state socialism in East Germany. She has been followed for a while by secret service, who watches her and controls her, without arresting her. In this town, she meets a young, very pleasant also brilliant doctor, who is obviously also an informant, like everybody else there. He, however falls for her, and has a strong desire to make her feel good in this town and local hospital. On the other hand, Barbara is indeed plotting her escape big time, using her lover from West Germany, who somehow has an opportunity to visit East Germany occasionally through his work, and she is planning to leave the country illegally with his help.

This movie has something very valuable, compared to the other movies showing DDR life. It is not so much focused on the difference between West and East, as it has been focused on the difference between capital city and the province. Barbara seems moved when she discovers how much she could be useful and effective as a doctor in this town, and it seems that she also feels a bit ashamed of her own snobism, as she realizes that people need help and care even in the provincial towns. Also, her whole scheme for leaving the country is completely dodgy and manipulative. It is obvious that she is just using her lover to escape. In general, she faces an ethical dilemma: what is that she really wants to do with herself? Is it really right for her to leave at any cost?

I see some people expected a different ending because they obviously expected that leaving East Germany is the only right thing to do in one's life. This is pretty ignorant to assume. The system was bad, but people were just people like anywhere else. The ending is much more realistic than it looks at the first sight. It is actually something that happened very often in socialist countries: many people plotted to leave their respective countries, and they never acted on their plans, because they faced certain reasons for changing their minds. This film has a great point: we can't escape what is inside us. If we feel the reason to go, we will do it; otherwise, we won't. Barbara is a great, discrete reminder of what really counts in life. Nina Hoss is wonderful. I love every single shot with her.

I have enjoyed every minute of this show, till the very last episode of the last season. The entire show features a very intelligent and charismatic woman politician Birgitte Nyborg, , indicates how the politics in stable countries works. The leading role is one of the best females roles on TV ever. The other characters from Season 1-3 are brilliant too. In Season 4 the script was in general very good, except that the other characters were not as developed as in previous seasons.

What I don't like was the very ending of Season 4. Its too cheesy, unrealistic, naive - complete opposition to everything else in the show. I wish the author has seen my comment. They made a big mistake by changing all this so quickly, and making it so ridiculously cheesy. Also, I was really annoyed by Birgitte giving in to the whole range of mediocre incompetent men who are not even close to her brain and strength, but who all have been plotting to see her down : her half-retarded, disloyal, spoiled son, her disloyal sneaky male assistant, her disloyal "fatherly figure" in the party, her disloyal unpleasant party colleague etc etc. The only male character I actually liked in season 4 was her Arctic Ambassador, Asger, who was the literary the only smart and loyal male character in the show, the only one smart enough to be on Birgitte's level, and still to support her.

In general, the show features strong women, but it obviously has a conservative note - tendency to punish women for being ambitious. For inexplicable reason it shows how ambitious and experienced journalist, Katrine, breaks down over minor issues as soon as she becomes a boss. Its not Katrine we know from previous seasons. What happened to her? She married a professor guy and she became weak in meantime? That was very strange. Also, why is Birgitte tolerating disloyal incompetent men around her? Her son is stubbing her in her back, doing idiotic anarhist actions, which are on the mental level of 10 year old child, but she still gives him a credit. Why is she downgraded to that? These are the flows from the show, that I can't explain.

I like Lea Seydoux, and there is certainly plenty of beautiful shots of her face in this movie. However, the movie is failure in general, although the idea is powerful. A celebrity TV reporter becomes affected by the stories she is making, and her life becomes a mess. In the end she accepts that she is what she is and she will never be happy or sad, wrong or right, it is just what she does: looking for and creating sensationalism. The idea is to make the main character, France, a tragic character, but somehow everything in this movie is unconvincing, pretentious and, in a word, a failed mixed of melodrama and arthouse movie. In the first place, the movie is too long, and there is a lot of pointless scenes, to be honest. There are some powerful points, hints, suggestions, etc, but in general, they don's hang well together in the movie, they are simply tiring. Pity, they wasted a good idea, and for sure, a top celebrity among French actresses, who somehow, in spite of the bad movie, was actually a perfect choice for the role. Still the movie is disappointment.