What was all the fuss about?

Rating: 6/10 (1 October 2006)

The basis of this film is the relationship between two men, yet that relationship is not developed thoroughly at all. They spend a few nights together in the lonely mountains whole herding sheep. But why? Do they have some special bond? Barely. Do they share stories of their commonalities? Not really. One of them is drunk and cold, and lo and behold, he's now naked in the tent. If this was a movie about heterosexuals, it would be boring.
The scenery is beautiful, and the film does a better job at developing the relationship later as life goes on, but the core of the story -- the beginning -- is really lacking in development. Pretty scenery and artistic film-making can only make up for so much lack of plot development. Considering it was drawn out from a short story, this is probably one of the difficulties in screen writing.
This film would be much more realistic if the relationship was actually based on something tangible, but it's not. At the end, you do feel some pain for one of the main characters, so the movie does a decent job of bringing its audience into the characters' lives. But it could have been much better than it was, and a lot of people seem to be overlooking that fact.