Film Reviews by Philip in Paradiso

What is striking about this film is 2 things. First of all, it is based on a completely true story: how extreme violence was born out of the military dictatorship in Argentina, which ended in 1983/4. In a way, the criminal violence depicted in the movie is a prolonging of the institutional and political violence of the dying military regime: an entire country was brutalized and things like that do not happen in a vacuum. Certain individuals have (or believe they will always have) impunity. Political violence morphs into criminal enterprise.

Second, what hits you is the ordinary character of 'the clan' -- outwardly an average middle-class family of good Catholics who are pretty dull and ordinary, except for the eldest son, who happens to be a star rugby player. It makes you think of the phrase (H Arendt): 'the banality of evil'. Who knows what, and who is going to do something about it, if anything? Who is going to keep quiet and avoid rocking the boat?

The characters lack depth at times, and yet the film is fascinating in its own, horrible way. The patriarchal figure of the father is, in his own quietly spoken way, truly scary. Overall, a good film that I recommend.

This is the story of 5 teenage girls confined to the family home while plans are made to marry them off, but they are not going to just take it and do nothing about it...

It is a brilliant movie. The 5 girls have so much personality and are so rebellious, it is fascinating to see how they battle the powers that be, i.e. the patriarchal order that dominates life in the villages of Anatolia.

The film is not didactic and is well-made. It is a very good, very authentic film. The acting is excellent too.

The film documents the 1965 massacre of Communists or Communist sympathizers in Indonesia through the eyes of one man whose family was targeted by the killers. Many of the victims were not Communists at all. The scale of the violence was such that it could be termed a genocide. Britain and the USA supported the genocidal killers, and, in fact, they are still, broadly speaking, in power in Indonesia today.

It will unsettle and shock you, but it should be seen. It could be called: "A study in Evil".

I was not sure the movie would be that good. In fact, I found it very good. The life of the main character was, in some ways, fascinating. The acting of all the key characters is excellent, particularly Amy Adams'. There are also some funny moments and the film sustains the viewer's interest to the end, in my opinion. Overall, a very good film in my view.

Not a bad film but not a masterpiece either. The storyline is interesting along the lines of your usual zombie movie. But I found the characters a bit formulaic and the hint of a love story between the 2 young lead characters is not credible, somehow: there seems to be no chemistry between them. Overall, you will like it if you like that kind of film. But the raving reviews it got when it came out are over the top in my view: it is fairly good, not superb.