A good movie, worth seeing

Rating: Null/10 (2 January 2004)

I found the openings scenes of this movie a bit too much to handle. Same goes for some of the scenes in the middle (I won't go into the descriptions; they were simply horrible). It was intended to be that way of course, to bring home the horror of the civil war. The movie is about how people survived the civil war, despite their losses.
I got into the movie in the second half better, which probably means after Ruby (Rene Z.) comes on the scene. Upto that point it seemed like a usual love story. I have not yet read the book. The movie grows into a beautifully touching work toward the end. My favorite episode in the movie is the one involving Natalie Portman, and she is not even one of the major characters. The main characters Jude Law and Nicole Kidman are believable, although Kidman did not initially appear so.
I loved the cinematography, and the scenery which I understand is from Romania. When the movie ended, what I was left with was knowing a little more about the people that lived through the civil war. The movie was not that much about the war- who won, how, etc.- but about how it changed the lives of the people.
I found this movie to be a bit too long. Still it is worth seeing.