I rarely watch short films as they only seem to be on late night television and are not publicised enough for me to know which short films are worth while. As The Room is an extra feature on The Hitcher DVD, it gave me a wonderful opportunity to witness a high quality short with Rutger Hauer in excellent form.

Artistically shot in black and white, The Room explores a man's obsession with a room he passed by in the early stages of adulthood and is expressed in a documentary/ interview style. The dialogue is very poetic, typical of a man expressing his feelings for a woman, but is also juxtaposed with ramblings and occasional deficiencies in fluency. This adds great realism and depth to Hauer's performance who is perfect as an eccentric man with most of his life behind him.

The piano music that Harry (Hauer) hears from the room is constantly in the background and enhances the touching atmosphere of the film and intensifies the feelings of sadness expressed by Hauer.

Hauer proves he is more than just a psychotic Hollywood bad guy with this role and perfectly displays his more sensitive side. Mattijn Hartemink is also effective in the flashback scenes as young Harry with a silent role. He shows how affected he is by the music and his disappointment when it goes away.

The ending is prophetic and leaves you in a reflective mood longer than many feature length films. A very good effort.


I recently had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Hauer at the 2005 Sarasota Film Festival for the U.S. premier of this film. Not only was he gracious enough to autograph my copy of BLADE RUNNER, he took the time to answer some questions about the film before screening THE ROOM for a packed theatre.

I was so impressed by the film that I used it as the yardstick by which to compare all other films I had seen at the festival. It was powerful and moving, yet subtle and brief. The film tells the story of how a young man, (older version played by Rutger) one day finds himself entranced by a seemingly ordinary room in an unremarkable building near the street. Walking by, he notices a single window, always open, from which a haunting melody can be heard. Each day, he passes by the room, sometimes standing for hours outside, watching it through the silken drapes that flutter in the light breeze, hoping to get a glimpse of its occupants. Towards the end of the film, we find out how significant this room really is and what has drawn our protagonist to it.

The film was cut beautifully. Not a second of screen time was wasted on an uninteresting shot. Any single frame from the film could stand alone in an art gallery. Rutger is amazing. He is mysterious, yet approachable. His dialogue encompasses a series of reflections on a life that has run it's course, for better or worse. His words conjure familiar feelings and thoughts from the audience. I was particularly moved by a scene in which he is looking at some old photos, remembering his favourite dog, his favourite horse and his first love. You get the feeling that you are in his presence, as he allows you into his world to glimpse precious memories of a life that is nearing its end.

I loved this film and would recommend it to anyone who is looking for something fresh, intelligent and moving. Should be required viewing for all film majors.


It must be so difficult to tell a story where not much happens, yet still grip the viewers attention. I think this short film achieves this with effortless quality. Rutger has an amazing voice that is very soothing, wise and fatherly, (I'm not gay) it reminds of the qualities that Robert Redford has in narrating. The end is very sad, but beautiful. One wonders how long Harry has left, will he be lonely and will he get to say his goodbyes? Also one gets annoyed at Mr Hauer for not getting involved in more work of this caliber. Lets hope he continues to do fine work in Holland and stays away from Hollywood.

Worth Watching


this a haunting piece of work.its only ten minutes long but i would sooner pay ten bucks into the cinema to see this than to see any full lenght movie currently doing the rounds. it is a simple piece of a man's reflection.he arrived a young man in this place and was mesmerised by a room and the music coming from it...and now here he sits,dying in old age in this place he so fondly connects to his youth. the music in it is brilliant,the guitars have that jazz-room twang like neil young's music in dead man. if you get the chance,watch this film.its worth it.if rutger hauer made more films like this i think he would get more respect than he gets.at the moment you hear him put under phrases like "everybody's favourite psycho".im sure that is not what rutger would want to be rememered as an actor for.he also directed this film,so in this shows that he a very artistic actor/director.a change from the b-grade movies he has been doing since the early 90's.i hope to see more of this rutger hauer as he is one of my favourite actors.


When, oh, when will someone like Anchor Bay or Blue Underground release this on widescreen DVD??? Le Orme, which I only know because of my rare/vintage video collecting habit, is a film in my collection that I would not only sit through, but actually enjoy watching. The fact that Klaus Kinski is top billed, but is only in small parts of the film, means little to me. (Though several comments expressed disappointment in his rather limited screen time.) I cannot say that this is a good horror film, a good mystery, a sci-fi epic or anything of that nature. It is simply unclassifiable in the "genre" sense of things. It is more like a confusing, frightening (though not particularly violent or bloody) dream, filled with great visuals and mystery. It relies on visuals and emotion, much like Bava's "Lisa and the Devil". Both films are beautiful in almost every sense, but almost impossible to describe in a logical manner; they both occur in such a dream-like atmosphere. Don't be deterred by Force Video's synopsis on the back cover. It is infinitely more complex and intriguing than that. Though Force Video's release from 1986 (the only one in the US, that I know of) is cropped to full-screen on tape, even in that format it is still great. Releasing it remastered and/or letterboxed would make it magnificent (hint, hint... DVD companies).


This is actually a very good surreal mystery movie, despite the description that tries to sell it as a Sci-Fi movie. Balkan stars as a woman haunted by mysterious visions and lost memories that she is trying to piece together. She spends the majority of the movie trying to make sense of her visions. Very atmospheric and effective. It is true that Kinski does not appear very much in this film, but the staring actors are very good. There is only an English dubbed version available in the US, and the dubbing leaves something to be desired, but the actors do a very good job. The cinematography, by Academy Award winner Vittorio Storaro is excellent. An earlier Giallo by director Bazzoni, THE FIFTH CORD, is also excellent, and also lensed by Storarro.


Footprints is a very interesting movie that is somewhat difficult to categorize. "Psychological thriller" is the most appropriate description I can think of. The female protagonist, Alice Cespi, discovers that she doesn't remember anything of the last three days. The only clue she has is a torn photo of a hotel. She is also haunted by a recurring, very vivid, dream about a science fiction movie that she believes she saw many years ago. In her pursuit of the truth behind her amnesia she doesn't trust anyone, but little by little it becomes obvious that she has visited the town where the hotel is located before. This is an exciting flick whose main virtue is that it is virtually impossible to predict how the events will unfold, and particularly, how it will end. The unusual loneliness of the main character and the unreliability of everyone else ensure that the good old paranoid feeling is present throughout the film, whereas beautiful colors and some spectacularly filmed sequences make this a visually attractive movie as well. The important part of the one and only Nicoletta Elmi, everyone's all time favorite redheaded obnoxious child star of Italian horror, is an extra bonus.


Alice (Florinda Bolkan), a translator living in Italy, discovers that she has a memory loss and can't recall the last couple of days. She starts to follow a trace of memory fragments, which leads her to the small town of Garma. People in the town seem to recognize her and she's beginning to suspect that the re-occurring nightmares of astronauts conducting horrible experiments has something to do with her own amnesia.

The movie is interesting and the plot is good, but it's a bit to slow moving and arty for my taste. The plot takes some nice twists and it's really hard to figure out where it's heading. Florinda Bolkan is good in her role (but even better in "Flavia the Heretic") and it's always nice to see "star" child actor Nocoletta Elmi. Klaus Kinski's role is too small though. This is not a movie for the die-hard gore hound or exploitation addict, but still a very nice hour-and-a-half mystery.


A very insightful psychological thriller! Footprints is a stylish example of the 70's powerful Italian film making.And Luigi Bazzoni, a wrongly underrated director and visually amazing 'auteur'. The movie develops its unusual plot with an incredibly suspenseful atmosphere and never disappoints,especially in its sad and dramatic finale! Florinda Bolkan delivers an excellent performance,rich of nuances and touching sensitivity,being able to portray a dark lady who is not only fascinating,but also painfully real and tragically lonesome.But the all cast is a treat,as well! Lila Kedrova,Nicoletta Elmi(the mysterious kid by the beach),Italian screen legend Caterina Boratto and stunningly beautiful B movie queen Evelyn Stewart in the brief but haunting role of the protagonist's friend! And Klaus Kinski in a surprisingly disturbing cameo! It's peculiar to notice how incredibly well done movies like Footprints were! Vittorio Storaro's moody and creepy cinematography,stylized locations and sets,Nicola Piovani's haunting score and first of all the story,so intense and disturbing,so intelligently layered and structured! A thriller with fantastic elements,but especially with a soul and a personal vision. I wish movies like Footprints would not be forgotten! I wish the movies were more insightful and personal today as they were back in the 60's/70's! And yes..i wish somebody will soon make a digitally remastered widescreen DVD out of this little masterpiece!


"Footprints (on the Moon") is almost certainly the strangest, most convoluted and most atypical Giallo ever made. It may come as a restraint to some of the sub genre's fans, but this film doesn't feature many of the regular Giallo trademarks like bloody knife murders (preferably committed by a masked killer wearing black gloves), ravishing scantily dressed beauties and unpredictable red herrings. However, to compensate for all this  and much more  "Footprints" benefices from the most indescribably mysterious and non-stop compelling atmosphere I ever experienced in this type of film. The level of mystery in this movie is so high and unbearable it literally makes you feel uncomfortable and scared. Like the female protagonist Alice Cespi herself, you absolutely have no idea of what's happening or why, and this feeling of utter powerlessness is unquestionably the film's main strongpoint. As a viewer, you crave to help this poor woman understand the things that overcome her, but you simply can't. Alice has a successful career as an interpreter, but her quiet and peaceful life gets brutally interrupted when she wakes up one morning and slowly begins to realize she has absolutely no recollection of the previous three days. She finds a torn apart photograph of a hotel located on the holiday island Gama and decides to go there in order to investigate what happened. On the island several people including a lonely little girl seem to recognize Alice, only she used the fake name Nicole, wore a red-haired wig and acted like she came to the island to hide from an unknown danger. Meanwhile, even the poor girl's nights are restless as she has reoccurring dreams of astronauts hopping on the moon surface and an uncanny scientist called Dr. Blackman. The plot of "Footprints" is truly bizarre and slowly brooding, and particularly the cosmic sub plot is really difficult to link with the rest. Alice assumes they are just images from a Sci-Fi movie she saw long time ago, which sounds like a reasonable enough explanation, but you sense there's a deeper meaning and actual connection to all the other events. Fans of tension-driven and stylish Italian cinema can't afford themselves to miss this film, really. This is director's Luigi Bazzoni's psychological tour-de-force, with staggeringly beautiful photography and mind-altering music. In spite of the lack of violence (or maybe just because of it), the film is genuinely disturbing and the mental agony Alice goes through honestly affects the viewer emotionally as well. As it is sadly too often the case in Gialli-cinema, the climax suddenly comes rather abrupt and nearly doesn't give a waterproof explanation of all the awkward events you just witnessed for the last hour and a half. Still, the content of "Footprints" will keep you contemplating long after the film has finished and its powerful impact will only increase. Florinda Bolkan is sublime as the tormented leading lady and receives excellent feedback from the limited supportive cast, including the young Nicoletta Elmi. The eminent Euro-cult star Klaus Kinski receives top-billing as well, but his role is merely an extended cameo. This film is actually a lot better than director Bazzoni's more acclaimed (and much easier available) Giallo "The Fifth Cord", so here's to hoping "Footprints" will soon receive a fancy DVD-release as well.


I saw this movie many years ago, have tried to locate it but perhaps understandably it is nowhere to be found. It was so esoteric, & yet one of a handful of movies that remains with you for a long time. I am still not sure what the reality of the movie is, and perhaps, like the Uncertainty Principle, the obscurity is the definite thing. Acting is superb, the atmosphere is always filled with a sense of foreboding, an overall melancholiness permeates, & yet, it is hard not to be absorbed in the story. I rented it thinking it was science fiction (it was in the sci-fi section with some totally misleading blurb), but quite clearly it is not. Or horror, or even suspense. In fact, one feels thankful the director took the courage to make a movie like this, for which obviously there is no solid audience. I know some people have complained about Klaus Kinski's short role, but I think it is very appropriate - his limited exposure is critical to the formation of the mystery of this movie.


I was very impressed with with this film which was directed by (Luigi Bazzoni). The story was about a young woman translator who suddenly has lost all memory of the last three days and has suffered nightmares about astronauts on the moon. She can not explained how this has happened to anyone. One day a postcard arrives for her from the island of Garma, where she goes to visit. strangely though people seem to know her even though she has never been there before. Also her dreams of astronauts on the moon come back to her.

I thought that this was a very strange Italian movie that seemed very haunting at times and there was also strange images in the film that seemed to stay with you throughout the the time you were watching the film. I would recommend this film to people just to see how good it is. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!


I first heard of this one while searching the 'Net for reviews of another Italian giallo/horror effort, the contemporaneous THE PERFUME OF THE LADY IN BLACK (1974; whose R2 SE DVD from Raro Video, by the way, I recently acquired)  where it's referenced as being in a similar vein but also just as good. Having watched FOOTSTEPS for myself now, I can see where that reviewer was coming from  in that both films deal with the psychological meltdown of their female protagonist. Stylistically, however, this one owes far more to Art-house cinema than anything else  in particular, the work of Alain Resnais and Michelangelo Antonioni (and, specifically, LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD [1961] and THE PASSENGER [1975] respectively); accordingly, some have accused it of being "deadly boring"  an epithet often attached to such 'pretentious' (read: cerebral) fare!

Anyway, the film involves the quest of a woman (Florinda Bolkan) to determine her movements in the preceding three days  of which she seems to have no recollection. Following a series of cryptic clues, she travels to the 'mythical' land of Garma (nearby locations, then, bear the equally fictitious names of Muda and Rheember)  where she encounters several people (including Lila Kedrova as an aristocratic regular of the resort) who ostensibly recall the heroine staying there during her 'blackout'! Most prominent, though, are a young man (Peter McEnery) and a little girl (Nicoletta Elmi, from Mario Bava's BARON BLOOD [1972])  the former always seems to happen on the scene at propitious moments, while the latter apparently confuses Bolkan with another woman (sporting long red hair and a mean streak!).

While essentially a mood piece, this is nonetheless a gripping puzzle: inevitably, vague events transpire at a deliberate pace  and where much of the film's power derives from the remarkable central performance (which can be seen as an extension of Bolkan's role in the fine Lucio Fulci giallo A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN [1971]). However, there's no denying the contribution of cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (who provides any number of sweeping camera moves and an effective color scheme  adopting orange/red/blue filters to create atmosphere and coming up with a saturated look for the disorientating, bizarre finale) and Nicola Piovani's fitting melancholy score (the composer is best-known nowadays for his Oscar-winning work on Roberto Benigni's Holocaust-themed tragi-comedy LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL [1997]).

With this in mind, it's worth discussing how FOOTSTEPS was presented in the version I watched: well, being apparently hard-to-get in its original form (I can't be sure whether it's uncut here or not, except to say that the film ran for 89 minutes while the IMDb  lists it at 96), this edition is culled from a fairly battered English-language VHS (the dubbing is surprisingly good, given the international cast) with burnt-in Swedish subtitles to boot (besides, the DivX copy froze for a few seconds at a crucial point in the story around the 82-minute mark)! Still, we do get a welcome bonus i.e. a 9-minute 'Highlights From The Soundtrack' in MP3 format.

I realize I haven't yet mentioned the moon mission subplot, to which Klaus Kinski's presence is restricted: incidentally, around this same time, he had a similarly brief but pivotal role in another good arty thriller with sci-fi leanings (and also set in a distinctive location)  namely, LIFESPAN (1974). As I lay watching the film, I couldn't fathom what possible connection this had with the central plotexcept that Bolkan mentioned a recurring dream about a movie she had once seen, though not through to the end, called "Footsteps On The Moon" (a somewhat misleading alternate title for the film itself)  amusingly, she at first recalls the picture as being called BLOOD ON THE MOON (which, of course, is a classic 1948 Western noir with Robert Mitchum and directed by Robert Wise!). That said, I took this 'diversion' in stride as merely one more outlandish touch to the film (given also Bolkan's former employment as a translator at a conference discussing Earth's future)  and certainly didn't expect the astronauts to turn up on Garma's beach at the very end to pursue the female lead, where the sand then turns ominously into the moon's surface!

The film's plot will probably make more sense on a second viewing  though, to be honest, this is best approached as a visual/aural experience and one shouldn't really expect it to deliver a narrative that's in any way clear-cut and easily rationalized! For the record, the only other Bazzoni effort I'd managed to catch prior to this one was the middling straight giallo THE FIFTH CORD (1971), starring Franco Nero (which I had recorded off late-night Italian TV); some time ago, I did get hold of his Spaghetti Western rendition of "Carmen" titled MAN, PRIDE AND VENGEANCE (1968)  also with Nero and Kinski  as a DivX (after I'd already missed a matinée broadcast of it)but the conversion had somehow proved faulty and, consequently, the disc wouldn't play properly!


In a bizarre experiment, an astronaut is abandoned on the moon as Alice (Florinda Bolkan), a troubled translator living in Italy, wakes from a nightmare about a lunar mission mixed with an old movie that frightened her as a child. She also has no recollection of the last three days except for a torn photo of the Garma hotel she finds in her apartment. Fired from her job, Alice heads to that resort island to try and piece together the mystery...

Often touted as a giallo due to it's director (THE FIFTH CORD's Luigi Bazzoni) and the presence of Evelyn Stewart, Nicoletta Elmi, and Klaus Kinski, FOOTPRINTS is actually a deliberately paced psycho-thriller with sci-fi overtones. Blurring the distinction between dream, reality, memory and movies, the disturbing story is beautifully photographed by Oscar-winner Vittorio Storaro with a pensive score by Nicola Piovani. It also combines elements of such diverse films as Armando Crispino's MACCHE SOLARI and Lucino Visconti's DEATH IN VENICE in it's depiction of alienation, isolation, hallucination, and maybe madness. Brazilian actress Florinda Bolkan, on screen all the time, does a redux of her Carol Hammond in Lucio Fulci's A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN as Alice, a young woman thrust into a mystery that makes her question her sanity. The locations mirror Alice's unstable state of mind; the island of Garma, off-season, with it's Arabic influence and ancient ruins, is a lonely, almost mystical place unwilling to give up its secrets. Evelyn Stewart has a bit in the beginning as a concerned friend, Nicoletta Elmi and Oscar-winner Lila Kedrova are hotel guests, Peter McEnery plays a handsome biologist trying to help Bolkan, and the ever-intense Klaus Kinski is "Blackmann" in the film-within-a-film, "Footprints On The Moon".

FOOTPRINTS is a classy case of "Guaranteed 100% Euro-weird" but not for everyone. There's only one murder toward the end but you won't see it coming as the film starts to come together.


OK ... The end of this may be something of a letdown after what has come before ... And Klaus Kinski should have had his 10 second appearance cut out ... But there is no getting away from the fact that this is a really wonderful atmospheric Euro thriller ... I can't believe I have never seen this till now ... Its good to know there are films out there that are still worth tracking down ... And this really is ... Stunning visuals ... Haunting ... And builds an amazing atmosphere ... Florinda Balkan is perfect as our heroine ... And the scene on the beach with Nicoletta Elmi is some of the most relaxed and perfect acting you could see ... Lila Kedrova is spot on as a fellow visitor to the town who may or may not be who she seems ... If you miss the hay days of Euro cinema then chase this out ... There's a decent widescreen print going round ... And please get this out in a restored DVD someone ... They did it with the directors " Fifth Cord " ... And this is a much better film


Footprints certainly isn't your average run of the mill Giallo, and that's no bad thing. Unlike his previous effort, The Fifth Cord (which was your 'classic' Giallo) Luigi Bazzoni's film forsakes almost all of the Giallo trademarks and instead of murder; the focus is very on psychological mystery. It's obvious from the outset that this is going to be an entirely bizarre film as the film opens up with a scene set on the moon. Things don't get any clearer after that as the lunar sequence turns out to be the dream of Alice, a troubled woman. Alice is tormented by dreams of an astronaut stranded on the moon, which have apparently come from a viewing of a film called 'Footprints on the Moon'. After several things go wrong for her, Alice decides to go to a mostly deserted former tourist spot named Garma. Upon her arrival, she is surprised as the people she meets seem to already know her. Alice also meets a young red headed girl who also seems to already know her; the girl tells Alice she looks exactly like Nicole, except nicer and with shorter hair...

The fact that Footprints doesn't feature much in the way of sex, murder and other Giallo trademarks puts it somewhat on the back foot with it's primary audience from the beginning as most people going into this film aren't going to get what they were expecting (or, probably, wanted). But on the other hand, Footprints commands respect for the fact that it doesn't just follow on from what went before it. By 1975, the Giallo had started to lose it's popularity and many of the films coming out around this period (with a few very notable exceptions) were merely retreads of what came before, so Luigi Bazzoni would have been taking a big chance on this film. Florinda Bolkan gives a strong performance in the lead role; and the fact that she's not the prettiest Giallo heroine isn't really important. The mystery builds nicely throughout, and while it can become a little turgid at times; Footprints is, generally speaking, intriguing for the duration. It probably won't come as a surprise to many once they get there that the ending doesn't make much sense, and doesn't really clear anything up; but it nicely adds to the bizarre cult value of the film, and all in all; I give Footprints a thumbs up!


In the final days of the year 1999, most everyone in Taiwan has died. A strange plague has ravished the island. Supposedly spread by cockroaches, the disease sends its victims into a psychosis where they act like the insects. Eventually, they die. The Hole takes place in a crumbling apartment building (which is especially well created; kudos to the set designer!). Its two protagonists live right above and below each other. The woman is on the lower floor, and the pipes above her apartment are leaking fiercely, threatening to destroy her food supply, not to mention her sanity. She calls a plumber to go check it out, and he accidentally pokes a hole through the floor of the man's apartment. The two have never met before, and they come into contact through the hole.

The script is quite brilliant. Few films are simultaneously this funny while remaining completely human, deeply exploring the human condition, especially feelings of loneliness and despair. Tsai's direction is simply beautiful. Like a lot of other Taiwanese directors, he uses a lot of long takes. But unlike, say, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Tsai doesn't overuse them. In fact, I don't know if I've ever seen them used better. They're always effective and never tedious.

It would be wrong to review this film without mentioning the musical numbers. Yes, The Hole is also a musical, and a great one, at that. In the film's best scenes - which is saying something, considering how good all the other scenes are - the man imagines that the woman is a singer, almost a cabaret singer. These numbers are fully choreographed, often with backup dancers and singers. In a stroke of genius, Tsai has these elaborately produced numbers take place in the crumbling building, the signs of apocalypse and decay unhidden. This provides both a sense of pathos and absurdity.

The Hole is a film that begs to be seen. It ought to be a cult classic, if nothing else. Before I went to see this, I was told that it was a decent film, but probably Tsai Ming-liang's least good one. Well, if that is true, I just cannot wait to see another one! 10/10.


*MINOR SPOILERS*

Need any further proof that Tsai Ming-liang ranks among the most original and provocative filmmakers working anywhere today? See this film.

Working from slight variations of a theme running through most of his work, THE HOLE represents a study in alienation and loneliness - in this case between a man and woman who are upstairs/downstairs neighbors - and how varied structures (real or psychological) of modernity wall people off from one another. Here, the woman (the downstairs neighbor) attempts to endure as her apartment is flooded by a prodigious leak from upstairs. A plumber attempts to locate the source of the problem, then disappears after creating a large hole in the floor. Already isolated and desperate (both characters are among the few residents of a housing project who haven't fled in advance of a mysterious, near-apocalyptic epidemic). The hole linking the two apartments functions first as yet another in a long line of indignities, but soon begins to take on a significance of near-mythic proportions.

Tsai's sense of humor, and sense of cinematic history is displayed with a bit more overtness than usual - as the woman's occasional daydreams revolving around her upstairs neighbor are visualized as musical numbers (set to the music of Grace Chang) which explode from the screen in brief bits of sensualistic, surreal romance and humor - quite reminiscent of the big-screen PENNIES FROM HEAVEN. And for all of the ennui and alienation on display here, Tsai's skewering of late 90s pre-millennial tensions is funny, absurd, and gives this film a very appealing strageness. The final scene is extraordinary.

Meanwhile Tsai - in typical fashion - subverts most of the usual expectations or preconceptions Westerners bring to Asian cinema with a nonchalant, casually-revealed directness, focusing on both the absurdist tendencies of the human mind, and the most absolute of mundanities. There's an utter, nonchalant demystification of almost everything about his characters, sidestepping backstory or most cultural signifiers (which does amplify the isolation of the characters), making THE HOLE - and his other films - rather disorienting, but also always fascinating and insightful.


(the description of the mood of the movie may be considered as a spoiler - because there is not much action in fact)

Great one...

Is it for my peculiar interest for the dystopias and utopias? Is it for the atmosphere of the movie. Or is there some more magic? If yes, it is for sure the utmost human one...

This film is, no doubt, extremely artistic/artificial (depends on taste). I can imagine most of the people who hate to watch slow movies (and those of Tsai Ming Liang (who I didn't enjoy other times) are one of the slowest that I know), suffering during the movie. Yes, people are unable to slow down and to let time pass - and to watch it without feeling they waste it. One can take this piece as torture or as a therapy...

The topic at the surface? The lack of communication - even if we live in rabbit cages - one next to each other - but not really together? People are tired, sick of something and unable to describe it - just don't want to meet, touch, talk, confront the others... like if they had disappeared. The big block of flats looks void and the rain falling constantly evokes the strange melancholy inside. And sometimes it must be something abnormal, unexpected, some unwanted decay as a hole in the floor of concrete - that allows us to reach each other.

One of the possible ways to look at it is this: Don't survey the inner world of the characters - consider the whole movie-space to be inside of yourself. And ask - why is it there? Where could these depressive states and moods come form? Is there a place for them, they don't have a right to be here? And search for the answers (if you need them) among the walls and halls of the block - instead of inside hardly transparent mind of a man.

The key to understand is not-to-understand - to let a movie borrow us - as a subject of study - inside itself - and at the end safely return us to our more colorful and "normal" looking reality.

Then, maybe, you will reach - like me - the feeling of real, possible, non-pathetic hope, that in core we are still humans... and this state of mind can help one much to live in this world.


It's less visceral than the only other Tsai film I've seen ("Vive L'amour"), but the idea of doorways (holes) into others' emotions and existences is vividly portrayed here, as Tsai sets up long shot after long shot, usually with long takes, suggesting a sense of alienation in Taipei. The musical interludes, inspired by Grace Chang, are perplexing but welcome mile-markers that add new dimensions to the slowly evolving relationship between the young man upstairs and the woman downstairs. It's not necessarily an easy film to watch (although it's not heavy-handed by any means), so I'd warn any casual viewers who are looking for some "indie" entertainment (like Tarantino or Guy Ritchie). But if you'd like to know something about isolation among city-dwellers in Taiwan, and something more universal about city alienation and romantic yearning, then watch this film immediately.


This movie, one of the best I've ever seen, talks about incommunicability. It does it plunging ourselves in a livid Taipei, stained in cold colors, where the rain falls incessantly; a DAMP world. It does it displaying us the story of two persons living in this world, a man and a woman. a coincidence, or the fate,links their existences, but they're not able to open one to the other with words. Characters are the mirror of the difficulty of our society concerning interpersonal relationships. An incommunicability that here is taken to the extreme limits. all the characters exchange only a few words during the movie, dialogues are nearly absent, and when some words are spoken they're often weak and empty, far away from describing people's real feelings. So, the progression of the story, the revelation of character's feelings is developed (brilliant idea!) by the musical digressions, only apparently meaningless, that speckle the movie. The proceeding of the sentimental event, and the drama of female protagonist, lead us to a splendid ending, heavily symbolic. A movie totally different from the usual, a clever realization by a great-talented director. PS. Forgive me for my bad grammar!!


In the middle of The Hole I e-mailed a friend of mine to summarize it. Not sure if the film would break down into a series of submissive gestures, I felt a little un-easy recommending it, but then I saw the ending. It's perfect. I've been living in Korea for 6 months, and this film could just as easily summarize the strange ennui and frustration of any Asian metropolis as it takes on Taiwin here. It uses the myth of Hong Kong musicals the same way Godard or Hartley use Western musicals, but takes it to an extreme, it's gritty world and occasionally Kafka-esquire logic make it all the better. I really feel like The Hole's closest comparison is Hal Hartley's Surviving Desire, but have a kinda bleak edge to what are ultimately hopefully and strangely metaphorical films. Anyway, this is what I wrote to Esther. Hope you like The Hole too.

Hey,

watching a move called the hole. Taiwanese I think seems a bit to weird for china unless it's hong Kong. it's worth seeing so far. it's about a guy and a girl in an apartment complex. the guy's ceiling caves in and the girl starts to get annoyed and well it's kinda a weird metaphor for the simultaneous pleasure ,degregation, and pain of a rather intense crush. there's also a kinda zombie-virus-sub-plot too and a lot of weird little scenes where the girl acts out her desires through rather innocent and kinda fun 50's doo-wop sequences. worth a look.


The whole world is falling prey to a lethal disease, and rain never stops pouring down : nevertheless, in this atmosphere of nightmare, a man and a woman discover that they are neighbors, thanks to a hole in the floor of the man's apartment. They fall in love : at least, all would not have been lost. Although this wonderful film expresses the loneliness and the weakness of human being, there is also some room for hope, in the shiny singing scenes.


This film is like a dirge. UNTIL it gets to musical numbers which are like MIND F*CK, but gentler, like a mind caress. MIND FOREPLAY. The depressing vibe given from the speed & desperateness of the characters can be pretty Kill-Yourself-Awesome UNTIL you get to the musical numbers. It's a great film. Optimistic. Weird. Manic-depressive(Bipolar). That's it! THIS MOVIE IS BIPOLAR. anyway see it. IT'S A MUSICAL!!! WITH DEPTH!!!! If you like the existential dross like The Stranger, or Waiting for Godot, Then your probably get a real kick out of this one. I had to get the DVD through Amazon.com for like 12$. OH & the songs rock. well they rock but they aren't rock, there like calypso, jazz, Broadway, but by Grace Chung, & I can't find the soundtrack NOWHERE< but i wanna the songs are great, & the dances are so fun.


Compared to this, Tarkovsky is a speed freak.

Compared to this, Bela Tarr is MTV.

Compared to this, the movie "Russian Ark" is a roller-coaster ride.

I've just described 3 of the sllllowwwwwesssstttt experiences I've ever known, and this one tops them all. But that's not saying it's bad. On the contrary, I really liked it. But it was a chore.

I won't describe the plot, because you can easily find that elsewhere. Suffice it to say that the plot is INSANE. It's one of the most creative and bizarre ideas since "Becoming John Malkovich". I believe the interesting plot is the main reason I kept from nodding off (also, the humour was nice. That's something we rarely see in slow, artsy films).

Here we see a bizarre reversal of the norm. Most movies have little plot & little substance; yet they fill 90 mins with a lot of eyecatching images to keep us enthralled. But "The Hole" has 100% plot/theme without much to please the eyes. In that respect, I suppose it's a truly intellectual experience, much like reading a painfully verbose novel like Thackaray's "Vanity Fair" (which I've NEVER been able to finish!).

If you have a tremendous attention span, I think you'll really like this film. Despite its molassessy pace, it's highly creative and imaginative. It's like Jean-Pierre Jeunet on quaaludes and with a drab, dusty camera lens. Best of luck.


"Where to begin, where to begin . . ?(Savannah in the episode "Gimme Shelter")" To disabuse: Fox/Viacom does not, at this point in time, have any intention of releasing THE show on DVD. But be not downhearted! That you are reading this reveals that the magic lingers fifteen years on . . . And small wonder. This was post-modern television, a valiant attempt to visualize magical realism. 'neath the blue patina, charm, and brio were scripts bursting with symbolism and metaphor, music that actually interacted with scenes! And, ultimately, an attempt, however doomed, to recapture one's belief in innocence, to reclaim Eden, as it were . . . It's potency is perhaps best attested to by the fact that even as we, umm, type, a book is being written about the show wherein will be found the thoughts, fancies, and reminiscences of many of the show's actors, writers, directors, and producers. In the meanwhiles . . . anyone desirous of once again visiting the end of the world and reacquainting themselves with Seamus, Sheriff Cody, Savannah, et al . . . should not hesitate to contact me, I may be able to make you a copy. "Angels in the spray, wizards in the palm trees . . ."


Key West, for too short a time was "appointment TV" for my family. I'd stop by Red Lobster and pick up a Party Tray for the night it was on. The irony of the situation was that I was working for a Fox Affiliate at the time, and every one at the station was incensed at them not renewing the show. Everyone in that cast was excellent. Fisher Stevens... perfect. Who couldn't fail to identify with an "everyman" who dreams of being a writer in Key West? Jennifer Tilly was always remarkable (and she is one HECK of a Texas Hold'em Player). You can still find the pilot episode on YouTube. Wish they'd post the Hurricane one. That episode alone, should have won an Emmy, as well as the rest of the cast.


Such a shame that this wonderful bright spot on the small screen had such talent in writers and actors, such wonderful scenery that was the ultimate escapism for those in a land locked, sun deprived state. Many of the actors went on to bigger things...another indicator that there was something wonderful sadly lost. I lived in Columbus, Ohio at the time, with all of my (now ex) husband's very large family in a chorus of 'NO NO!!' every time it would be yet again taken over by a baseball game broadcast.

Someone who wrote here mentioned it was up against 'Rosanne'...all my ex and I noticed was that it was always always always preempted by BASEBALL!!!! Yes, FOX really wasted something wonderful that one and nothing will ever equal it~! Thank you for the memories of it.


I am right now watching "The Big Chill" on DVD. One of its actors is Meg Tilly. I looked it up on IMDb which led me to reading Meg's bio which mentioned and reminded me of Meg's sister Jennifer Tilly whose filmography included "Key West", which was one of my wife's and my favorite shows. I then read this entire thread of reviews.

Wow, I really loved that show also and agree with all of the sentiments about the quirkiness and uniqueness of the characters and situations.

As most everyone else, I wish it was on DVD or otherwise available.

The last reviewer says he watches it on reruns so I wish I knew what network, channel, day, times it is on.

So if anyone knows how we can watch episodes of "Key West", please let us know.


This series, while idealized and fictionalized, has the quirkiness, sultriness, and good-heartedness that does come from living on an island.

I lived in an out of the way part of Hawaii for a few years and found some hilarious, quirky, and fun people in some remote (non-tourist) areas.

Every time I see the reruns of this series, I fondly compare my memories of experiences in out-of-the-way parts of Hawaii with the memories portrayed and fictionalized in Key West.

This series is not reality television. I hate reality television.

It is from the era when people still wrote creative TV shows. Give me a "young writer" who takes their inspiration from the "angels in the spray, wizards in the palm trees and elves in the seashells" any day.


Agree that this was one of the best episodes of this show. I remember the series well as I was in the Florida Keys when the show had its debut. I was looking through old VCR tapes that were "keepers" and came across two that had about eight episodes. I ended up spending part of Christmas night (and the next) watching these shows. The singer was Bankie Banx - saw his name come up on the credits. He's from Anguilla and owns a beach front bar called The Dune Preserve. He's a longtime friend of Jimmy Buffett and Bankie's classic song "Still In Paradise" is featured on the latest Buffett CD/DVD combo called "Live In Anguilla" - it is track #12 on CD 1 and #8 on the CD. I too would like to someday see this short lived series come out on DVD. Keep the faith!


We all seem to be in agreement. It was an excellent show and let die way before it's time. I've decided that if I really enjoy a show, it's often the kiss of death. I love the quirky, ensemble cast shows, and a great setting always helps. I really expected to see a lot of these stars in other television productions, but short of Mariska Hagartay who played Fisher Stephens crazy girlfriend, I've not seen many of them except in occasional cameo roles. What a shame.

Key West, Northern Exposure, Gilmore Girls, and Veronica Mars... all great shows, all sadly gone before their time.

Hear us, loud and clear, we want Key West on DVD..... please.


I think that "Key West" might do well as a DVD. There probably are a lot of failed Star Treks that just never had a chance to succeed. We will never know if this could have been a great series. I would love to know if there is a way to see older shows like this or are they just another Hollywood footnote? Is it possible to find copies of these shows so that we loyal oddballs can enjoy them again? The show had a great writing talent and some if not all of the episodes left you with a feel for the characters that is often missing in todays hit shows.I often came away with a sense of learning something from the story lines and greatly entertained by the very unique characters. Thank You.


I went into this film thinking I wasn't going to like it, but hoping to be surprised, but this, much like the film, ended up being bleak and hopeless. But don't get me wrong, Minghella delivers every bit of a grand epic and for those who enjoy that kind of experience and are willing to take that adventure and accept what comes as just that, then they will not be disappointed and it will be one of the better films of the year in their opinion. The acting is of a high quality and will most likely come away with a trinity of oscar noms for Law, Kidman and Zellweger, even though Portman's few scenes may be the most powerful in the film. The locations are beautiful and Minghella has an eye for a good shot.

However, for those like me who want the director to take them on the adventure instead of going willingly may come away disappointed mainly due to Minghella and his adaptation. The film is so utterly bleak it makes for what I consider to be a punching bag epic which is a film that that tries to hit hard with emotion but does so to such an extreme and so often that during the film I didn't have the time to emotionally invest, or hadn't recovered from a previous blow, and it became unrealistic and consequently too difficult to really care, not to mention predictable. Overall the "Cold Mountain" almost left me too drained to even think back on the good aspects of the film, as all I remember is death, which may have been an original motif but ends up being the focus instead of the characters.


"How can a name, not even a real name, break your heart?" Here's how. There have been few film versions of a celebrated novel that have done better justice to their source material than Anthony Minghella's movie of Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain. If you've read the book you will be able to feel most of the major scenes soul shakingly recreated. I personally cried numerous times while reading the novel and spent much of the evening watching the film through tears.

Astounding scope, beautiful words, great acting and great music. In the interview on the DVD accompanying the film Minghella talks about the multiple layers of the story. All of them work. One of the best films I've seen and an invitation to one of the greatest novels of the last ten years.


Watching "Cold Mountain" gave me the impression that its director, Anthony Minghella, was deliberately trying to outdo himself and the own film of his' that he was trying to beat was the virtually impeccable "The English Patient" from 1996. Comparing the two movies, the premise is quite similar. We have a passionate love affair between two people set in a turbulent time of war and they end up treating the war more or less as a disturbance in the background while trying to find themselves back in each other's arms again. The primary plot differences are that Nicole Kidman's character is not married, Jude Law's is a deserter, and the conflict is the American Civil War.

"Cold Mountain" is, story-wise, more watered down and mellow than say "The English Patient" and it's more on the level for people who want a simple love story with some kind of an exterior turbulence causing a problem. It is a shorter film, which is a plus for people with less patience. However, it's not as spectacular or original or genuinely gripping as "The English Patient." My *only* big complaint about "Cold Mountain" is, astonishingly, the love affair between the characters of Inman (Jude Law) and Ada Monroe (Nicole Kidman). Amazingly, their love was the least interesting thing in the picture. They don't have a real relationship; we don't feel any real passion coming from them and the passion that we do see is more physical than emotional. I was more fascinated by the friendship between Nicole Kidman and Oscar-winner Renee Zellwegger and also Jude Law's travels across country dodging vigilantes and enemy soldiers. If Minghella had strengthened the importance of the love story, then he would have had, I feel, a better picture.

Of course, the movie is entertaining even if the love story is uninteresting. The Civil War sequences are absolutely great; they are of the modern tradition that show war as horrible and dehumanizing. The re-enactment of the Petersburg campaign, in which tons of explosives was detonated from underground and then followed by a hand-to-hand battle is horrifying. Minghella does not shy from showing blood and gore in an artistic and sensible manner, and he's not afraid to show casualties of innocence and life in these scenes. There are moments where women as well as men are killed, oftentimes by crossfire. And there's more to it. Just the sound design of the movie generates tension. There's a scene where Inman and another deserter make themselves a meal by sawing off the head of a dead cow. We don't see the slicing, but the sound effects of blade going through bone are sickening.

Lastly, I must congratulate the cast for the performances. Jude Law was terrific in the movie and deserved the Academy Award nomination he received. I feel that Nicole Kidman deserved one as well, even though her character was a bit shallow. Renee Zellwegger had the most personality and screen-stealing atmosphere. And then there's just the bit parts that also really work to complete this stylistic world recreating a horrible time in America's past.

Maybe "Cold Mountain" would have been better as a war picture, but it most certainly would have been spectacular like "The English Patient" if its love story had been powered up and made more passionate by the screenwriters and director Anthony Minghella. As it is, it's a most enjoyable picture, I wasn't bored by it, and I recommend it. I just say that its love story - though a central plot point - is a little more mellow than it needs to be and all the stuff around it was what really worked.


it's been awhile since i've seen Cold Mountain,bit i do knew that i enjoyed it immensely.though it does take place during the the last days of American civil War,it's not really a war movie.it's more of a romance/drama.and it works.mainly because of the performances.usually i don't like Nicole Kidman,but i liked here.i thought she was very convincing in her role.i liked Rene Zelwegger,as well,who i'm not usually a fan of.Jude Law is good as usual.the supporting cast.there are some great supporting performances her,too numerous too mention.there's also some breathtaking scenery in the film.and there are also a number of very nice musical pieces as well.the story is sad and tinged with tragedy but it s a beautifully done well told story.for me,Cold Mountain is an 8/10


It's initial premise is based on the American Civil War but it's ultimately a love story. We start at the beginning of the war where the main characters (Kidman & Law) are obviously aware of each other and there's an obvious attraction, they have a passionate kiss on the day he leaves for the war. The main thrust of this film is for Law's character to return to Kidman's and his struggles to achieve that and her struggles to survive until he returns. The reason it fails to convince is that we don't see enough of this relationship before Law's character leaves for battle - it's difficult to believe the premise that 2 people yearn for each other so much given they've had so little contact. Everything else is just about fine, Renee Zellweger and her incumbent father and his entourage are lovely additions as is the threat from the gang chasing deserters. Sure it's a long film but it does hold the interest and the cinematography is great. An honourable attempt that doesn't quite make it but worth a watch nonetheless.


I really enjoyed this Minghella epic, thought not quite so much as "The English Patient" (a modern-day classic). The first 20 minutes or so feel awkward, but as Inman (Jude Law) embarks on the journey back to his love Ava (Nicole Kidman), the film picks up in leaps and bounds and it becomes a very memorable, thoughtful romantic drama. Apparently it is fashionable to hate Kidman at the moment, but I don't agree at all, and she does well here. I actually think that the romance between Inman and Ada is weakly developed in the script (they really don;t get much screen time together to develop a relationship), but Law and Kidman give it their all and convince. Ada's journey is the crux of the film- she becomes a strong woman who can bear almost anything. Zellweger at first seems all wrong as Ruby, but she grows on you after all and sparkles in many of her later scenes. The film has beautiful photography and set design, but never really captures the true feel of a period piece. Jack White, in particular, has long straggly hair and a pale rocker's complexion that look completely out of place with the setting. Cillian Murphy fans will enjoying seeing the talented Irish actor in an early bit part, and Natalie Portman actually proves she can act in probably the film's most striking sequence. It's a pity that in "The Other Boleyn Girl" she's so inadequate.


How is it possible to like and dislike the same movie?

The plot is very much like that Jody Foster thing, Sommersby, only not as good. Nicole was great....Jude was adequate. They didn't give him many lines...is there a reason for that? Generally, he's a pretty good actor. She's so elegant, his character is so country bumpkin. It makes one wonder what they see in each other.

Romance between two such was only successful in Lady Chatterly's Lover.

I think the dislike comes about because the movie is too long. They could have told the story in two hours.

The story is good. Good locations, good filming. The character actors were great.


When Liv Ullman's character says, "I feel like I'm in someone else's dream and they're going to be ashamed when they wake up," she is referring not only to being an unwilling player in society's war games, she is referring to being an ignorant participant in life itself. At the film's end, when she says that she had a dream that she had a child and she was trying to take care of it, but she forgot something else, the implication is that she has forgotten what she has learned in the war she's just survived, that like her own mother before her, she will be unable to pass on any vital lessons to her own child. And, therefore, the cycle of the shame of ignorance will continue...ad infinitum...


I don't recall a film which so deftly shows the emotional destruction of war, as mirrored in one single marital relationship. The focus of the film is the union between Ullman and Von Sydow--the two are in every scene. Through the course of the film, they experience a role reversal--one has the strength of survival and the other is reduced to emotional escapism through dreams. Both will lose a measure of humanity, but one to a greater degree than the other. The characters and the viewer go through periods of fluctuation in regards to closeness--the camera pulls out and away, sound disappears, words are lost, only for the camera to return to painterly closeups of its facially expressive stars. The confusion and fluctuation may make this film hard for some viewers, but this is all purposeful under the master hand of Bergman. I think the use of a "fake" war makes the film timeless, as relevant today as ever before, and by focusing on the human relationship through war, makes the film relevant to everyone. The pair could be anyone. The film is not grounded in place or time, but rather in emotion. A unique and effective war film, unlike any other. Bergman's films are virtuosic in presenting human relationships--that he would bring this to a war film is masterful.


Bergman's Skammen is one of the most realistic depictions of war ever set to film. This is not an action film by any means, though the pacing is faster and there is most action than in most any other Bergman movie. Nor is this a romanticisation of war or patriotism, unlike most war movies. In fact, the gritty realism and the deliberate ambiguity of the character's loyalties has a very contemporary feel.

Skammen is a darkly lit movie, that should be watched at night, so as to let it work it's magic. Many of the effects are conveyed indirectly, but so effectively that some scenes compete in intensity to a contemporary, insanely huge budget film like Saving Private Ryan. Of course, the action in Skammen is on a much smaller scale but it is impressive none-the-less.

While the film-making style feels contemporary, the setting of the film feels timeless and placeless. The war-torn countryside, and even the yet intact provincial hamlet could be anywhere, any time. And this film is not so much about specific historical events, with specific names and dates, but about universal human reactions to adversity and chaos.

The acting in Skammen, though typically impressive from Ullman and Sydow, is not of primary importance in this film, unlike most other Bergman movies. Through much of the film they are spectators, much as we are. Bergman has the war imposed on them, and through them on the audience, and their reaction is perhaps what any of our reactions might be.

Highly recommended. 10/10


First of all the story is not so simple as many earlier reviewers tend to emphasize, it is actually a very complex story, unlike Bergman's other movies that are more bend towards character study. In Skammen we have two main characters but as we are thrown from the start in the middle of a war we have no idea who is fighting and why, everything is open for any resolution. This creates a huge tension and makes every event meaningful. As the story unfolds we are introduced to numerous characters, that are turned into symbols of humanity, both its dark and luminous sides. We have the example of the innocent bystanders who try to get by during an absurd war, the cynical doctor who makes fun of his patients and provides the only bitter humor of the whole movie, the perverse opportunists who try to make the best of an atrocious event (Bjornstrand's character), the innocent dead children, the nameless figures almost turned into animals from the boat etc. All of them are somehow seen through the eyes of Jan (von Sydow) and Eva (Ulmann), their characters are more restrained then in other Begrman films (En Passion) and this is exactly because what is important here is the story, the way exterior events have the capacity to radically change human nature.

Bergman made this film two years after Persona where the main conclusion expressed by the only word uttered by Liv Ulmann's character is INGENTING, nothing. That's it: the meaning of art and the meaning of life, the latter being nothing more than a play that includes all plays. But what about war? And especially the annihilating ones of the XX'th century. In Persona, the only real emotion suffered by Ulmann's character is when she sees a victim of the Vietnam war turned into a human torch. In Skammen that idea is extended to a complex analysis of the dehumanizing nature of war. In a nameless region of a nameless country (we only assume it's Sweeden) two factions speaking the same language fight an absurd war. Jan and Eva are two dreamers caught in the middle but their dreams are woven in a sort of counterpoint. Jan is at first an idealist, unable to react properly to the world and a subject to his wife's will. Towards the end he turns into a radically different personality, capable of unmotivated murder, strong-willed, pitiless (watch carefully the suicidal on the boat..the simplicity of the act is harrowing). On the other hand Eva progressively looses touch with reality and at the end she is completely suffused in her own unfulfilled dream.

From a technical point of view the whole movie delivers its message in a very effective way. Bergman places the viewer alongside the character, putting the camera in the car with the actors, or in an extreme close-up behind the actor. Nykvist manages an extraordinary control of the camera, there are some masterful "hand-held" effects, very good in making everything seem "real". The shots when the characters are captured by the army look remarkably documentary-like. The screenplay is minimalist but the story is quite complex for that matter. Actually the whole movie is paradoxical, it has an intensity in the subject that is in a sharp contrast to the coldness and lack of emotional involvement with which it is directed and filmed. Nothing is melodramatic here, there is no compassion, no hope and no apparent redemption. But, as in Liv Ulmann's dream at the end it is all so beautiful one cannot help but being amazed at it...It was not so awful since it was so beautiful!


A gruelling watch, but one of Bergman's finest films. Interesting to compare this with The Hour of the Wolf, as both feature the same lead actors as artists (or an artist and his wife) who have taken sanctuary on an island. In the earlier film it's largely inner demons that lead to von Sydows disintegrating personality (at least that's how I read it) whereas here it's very much circumstances beyond his control.

Much has been written about the unsympathetic central characters, particularly von Sydow's. For me there are flashes of a good (if flawed) man early in the film, but one who copes badly with adversity. The flaws become all that is left as his humanity is gradually eroded by one horror after another.

I watched A Passion (Ullmann and von Sydow on their island again) soon after this, and was amazed to recognise many of the same locations. And then there's a dream sequence...


Shame is rather unique as a war film (or rather quite the anti-war film) in that it not only doesn't focus on the soldiers or politics involved (there is politics but not how you'd think it'd be shown), it deals with its two main subjects as the only two beings that can possibly be cared about at all in this brutal, decaying society they inhabit. Ingmar Bergman, in the midst of his prime, and following two other heavily psychological films, Persona and Hour of the Wolf, is far more interested in seeing what the effect of war has on usually civilized beings, that it brings out the worst in them, and also in a cathartic way is a reminder of what is truly crucial in living. His two key actors are frequent collaborators and friends Max von Sydow and Liv Ullman (as the Rosenbergs oddly enough), who are musicians living on a farm on an island (not too dissimilar from 'Wolf' when one thinks about it).

They see the tanks roll by, and a couple of old friends already getting worn down, but they try not to put it too much to heart; there's a sweet scene where the couple just talk, rather frankly but with heart (all one shot, as is repeated through the film is to perhaps create a sense of being provoked)...Then comes the trouble, including a fake film of propaganda made at gunpoint with the Rosenbergs, the psychological turmoil in being prisoners of war, and the terror involved with a 'friend' in the military (one of Gunnar Bjornstrand's most subtle works with Bergman). Needless to say this is not one of the easier films to go through in terms of Bergman's filmography, however for some it may be one of his more accessible works. His religious themes this time is kept very low key, even as the idea of keeping a sort of faith pervades the film's atmosphere. When there is war action it's shot in unconventional, quick ways (via great amigo Sven Nykvist).

And the deconstruction of the relationship between Jan and Eva is corresponded successfully with the backdrop of a chaotic kind of war-ground where the lines are never too surely drawn. In a way this film, shot right at the height of the worst times in Vietnam, is even more relevant for today; I couldn't help but see chilling, uncompromising coincidences between Iraq and elsewhere with some of Jan and Eva's scenes with the fighters, or those 'in charge'. The very last scene, by the way, is one of Bergman's very best, all around (acting, directing, lighting). It's not the kind of war picture (or, again, anti-war, I find little of the John Wayne spirit in this Svensk production) that I would recommend right off the bat to my friends all into Saving Private Ryan- it has a little more in kinship with Paths of Glory, looking at the effects of the hypocrisy of war. But in reality, like any of Bergman's "genre" films, it stands alone, however one that packs a wallop for the art-house crowd.


I watched this movie on a big screen a few months ago. I didn't know what to expect precisely, and for the first ten minutes I feared I might not enjoy this film. It was beginning very slowly, in silence and almost banality, which was all the less exciting as the sound was quite bad and the subtitles sometimes impossible to read.

But I definitely do not regret to have gone on watching it. It is one of the most beautiful Bergman movies I've ever seen, at the same time human, ruthless and psychologically so convincing.

Seldom have I seen actors play so wonderfully, with such an intensity on their faces : Liv Ullman's interpretation is unforgettable and Sydow is excellent too.

There is always psychological violence in Bergman movies, and this one may be the most physically violent of them all. The strained relationships between the man and the woman evolve in parallel with the physical violence that is surrounding them...

Finally, this sober, violent and powerful film contains a surprisingly striking human depth. An excellent Bergman.


The apolitical musicians Eva (Liv Ullmann) and Jan Rosenberg (Max von Sydow) have been married for seven years and live in a small farm in a remote island to escape from a civil war in the continent. They provide lingenberry to a couple of costumers to raise some money and buy some supplies. They love each other and Eva is twenty years old and wants to have a baby but the reluctant Jan, who is a weak and sensitive man, does not want to have children. When the rebels arrive in the island, their peaceful and calm lives turn to hell, and they get in the middle of accusations from both sides. When Colonel Jacobi (Gunnar Björnstrand) stalks Eva, Jan changes his behavior and becomes a brutal man, and the love and affection they feel for each other change to hatred and indifference.

"Shame" is an antiwar movie by the master Ingmar Bergman focused by the eyes of a couple of artists that are apolitical and does not listen to the news, but when the war arrives to their lands, they have their love, friendship and affection destroyed by the senseless soldiers. Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow have top-notch performances as usual and I do not recall seeing the breast of Liv Ullmann in any other movie. The process of brutalization of the pacific and sensitive Jan Rosenberg by the war is impressive and the bleak open conclusion is pessimist and adequate to the dramatic story. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Vergonha" ("Shame")


This is one of the bleakest, the most harrowing of Bergman's films I've seen. I also think this is one of the most powerful films about the ugliness of war and what it does to the human souls.

The couple of musicians, who left a big city for a remote island and make a living as farmers, find themselves capable of unspeakable and shameful acts that would have ordinarily been impossible for them even imagine, as they struggle to survive horrible reality of war. They betray their souls, their friends and even each other in a desperate attempt to simply survive another day. Liv Ullmann and Max Von Sydow are brilliant as usual as lost, confused, and terrified couple that got caught in the midst of a civil war.

9.5/10


What Bergman has got here is "What if all that bad stuff happened here in Sweden, to nice people like us?" And what he gives us, in the Swedish language, with Swedish actors, on Swedish locations (and using what appear to be genuine Swedish military vehicles) is what was familiar from war films set in almost every other country in Europe-- all the confusing invasions and counter-invasions, political lies, internment camps, faked confessions, summary executions, torture, turncoats, "collaborators", and so on. As in a modern short story, it's done in the abstract, with no real names, cities, or countries used. But the stronger faction are "Nazis": they strut about self-importantly, and some wear shiny knee boots. One even whips things with a riding crop (ok, it's actually a cane). The victimized couple are named Rosenberg. Apart from the shame they feel at finding dirtier ways to survive-- and who would not do what they did?-- what all of the above suggests is that the title is clearly meant to refer to Stockholm's de facto complicity with the Nazis. Indeed, what we are shown is what Sweden might have looked like if Germany had asked for a bit more than mining concessions.

The first half plays like a black comedy. We see the "fog of war" from the point of view of a comically passive couple who ignore the troops all around, the long convoys, the bombed-out buildings, the news reports, &c. They do not even bother to find a working radio. They are the ultimate in "Not in my backyard". They talk of wine and lingonberries; meanwhile friends are mysteriously conscripted and growing numbers of troops show up in the town. They show no curiosity about the war that has been going on around them for many years.

The man (Von Sydow) is cultured, sulky, and a navel-gazer; the woman (Ullman) is somewhat more impulsive, passionate, and outward-looking. There's a beautiful scene in which the man talks about his violin: the manufacturer, he says offhandedly, fought in the Napoleonic wars, but his own interest stops with the cultural artifact in his hand-- or, more precisely, which his own warm feelings about owning it, and the security that that ownership assumes. Not in my backyard! But when war finally breaks into their bucolic idyll, the man's timidity, an irritation in good times, turns into a liability, one he ends up overcompensating for-- as is often the case-- as Bergman demonstrates subtly and beautifully. Definitely worth seeing.


This film offers one of the greatest experiences available to movie-goers. It is by no means a pleasant film, but offers realities and emotions the human mind may never have meant to touch upon. It opens pathways in how an individual thinks, and afterwards will change the person forever.

The first time I saw this film was in class, and immediately after seeing it I had to skip my next class and walk around campus in order to reset my body and mind. I felt devastated and, somehow unreal, as if I didn't exist. It was only a few months later that I was telling one of my friends about SHAME, and she asked, "Oh, is that when you were messed up after seeing it, and ran into me talking all strange about it?" I didn't even remember running into or talking to anyone at all while outside that day, I was astonished.

In plot terms it is the simple tale of a couple torn apart by war. There suffering is greater than that of the dead and by the end...there are no words to complete the image that Bergman creates. Its like a horrible dream which causes you to wake, altering your own reality forever. This film must be seen.


Bergman's regular Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann starred as a village couple, Jan and Eva Rosenberg. The story began with an ordinary couple who fights and make up. Jan was a sensitive person, but an escapist who isolated himself from the world. Eva is a practical woman who is getting fed up with her husband's lack of ambition. Because Jan procrastinating in fixing their radio, the are oblivious of the impending war. Of course the war arrived, and the movie was a fascinating study of their transformation of each other and to each other through the invasion as they were mistreated by the enemy and by their own government.

There were no musical score to the movie, but the soundtrack was the war noise. In one scene the pulsating background gun shot, the explosion, and sound of the fly by planes was incredible. Now and then, Bergman zoomed into the facial expression as different event took places. When something violent happened, he zoomed out to let the audience sensed the violence rather than seeing up close. Very well done movie.


Ingmar Bergman's meditation on war concerns a couple living an idyllic existence on a small island off the coast (of what country isn't specified). Raging off in the distance is a war they know only from news reports. As they go about their day the war comes to them and it soon becomes a struggle for survival as both sides seem not to care about them. Bleak look at the human cost of war and those not readily engaged in battle but caught in the cross fire none the less. Its a movie ahead of its time as some 40 years since it was made the notion of armies at war where most of the casualties are the civilians have come of age. This is a dark disturbing film that is told from the average person's point of view with the complete sense of hopeless and confusion best expressed in the thought that kept running through my head, "what do I do now?". As an intellectual exercise the film is top notch, this is a film that will make you think. As an emotional film it is touching but never fully moving. I was never moved emotionally even as the horror of the situation made my brain do flip flops. (I should state that I admire Bergman intellectually for the ideas that he brings to the table, however I have never been moved by his films. I am not a "fan". I always sided with Fellini in the old film class argument as to who was better since he had more emotion to his films). Reservations aside this is require viewing especially since we live in a world were war, for most of us, is just a thing on a TV screen.


This begrudging and angry film is against not just the war during which it was made, but all war. It doesn't care what war it is. It might be the most emotionally involving experience I have ever had with Ingmar Bergman's work. There are no sides to the two main characters in this impacting drama, which doesn't intimate a point in any ceremonial symbolism as per Bergman's usual, but plainly showcases people and their lives and exercises what Bergman has already proved he understands about a person's reaction to a movie.

His top-drawer regulars Liv Ullmann and Max Von Sydow play an internalizing but bickering married couple who were once orchestra musicians. Now they live in a weathered farm house on an island. Part of the building frustration we grow to share with these two people fertilizes in the detail that nothing in their house seems to work. They are not reclusive intellectuals, either. They are a rather familiar marriage that has more or less resigned from life and is essentially apolitical; they only get wind of distant rumors of a war that has been going on forever. Ullmann is concerned with the danger to their lives and to her desire to bear children. Her husband Von Sydow shrugs off that the war will pass them by. Their serenity is interrupted by screaming fighter planes flying low over their house, the killing of a parachuting airman, the arrival of dubious troops, their inquisition, and eventually their capture by what appears to be the local side, but loyalties have long since splintered.

They are sent back to their home, witness gratuitous destruction and suffer the vindictive consequences of such an agonizingly distrustful marriage. This, one of my top favorite Bergman efforts, is a study of a couple jarred from their safely self-unaware lives and violated by a manipulative despair, testing them both to reveal who they really are. She lacks compassion to some extent, too self-serving and restless to have any patience for his capricious breakdowns into crying. His suppressed emotional issues have led to the repression of the very initiative and excitement that attracted them to begin with. The immense last twenty minutes, sporadically interrupted by images of the overwhelming gray sky, are among the closest to real emotion that Bergman ever filmed.

All systems of dogma and faith are the antagonists in this very essential and downbeat portrait. The basically clearcut personalities of Ullmann and Von Sydow's characters are hurled into the degenerate world of war because they are accused of being "sympathizers," but the film, shot on Bergman's small home island of Faro, doesn't give any information about where or when it's set, who the two sides are, and for what they're fighting. To an uninvolved civilian caught in between, the knowledge base is likely to be quite similar.

Ullmann and Von Sydow are not sympathizers for the apparent enemy, but they're partisans for who are apparently their side. This 1968 reactive allegory could be about the common noncombatant citizens of Iraq, or Kosovo, or Vietnam, or Israel, or Palestine, or...


Extremely pinching vision of a war situation where the couple from Vargtimmen (ok, they have different names and initial situations, but the actors are the same) gets caught in the crossfire of two fronts. The depiction of the fighting parties as faceless, superordinate authorities are often captured in sublime surreal pictures and draws interesting parallels to Orwell's 1984, even if Bergman thwarts this context on a personal level of a slowly burgeoning conjugal war. That is why countless fundamental and philosophical questions towards Eva's and Jan's marriage are relevant and essential, while the threat and danger from the outside tears open an abyss in the inside which was toilsomely covered with lambencies before. An intense allegory on the fragile facades of civic conventions.


A very credible and unsettling movie portraying the effects of war on the general public, Shame gives us a chilling understanding oh Ingmar Bergman's beliefs. The absence of color and sound (as in a soundtrack) helps to give the film a more realistic feeling. There is no soft or hard lighting or a variety of camera angles to give the story a charming or dramatic effect. Everything is very simply portrayed as it would be in reality. At times the storyline was confusing, but perhaps in order to give a sense of the characters' frame of mind  how they too do now know what is happening or why. The simplicity of the film made it somewhat boring, but I could understand how the director is trying not to glamorize the story and points. He depicted the harsh and unsettling events and effects of war. In the beginning the characters were introduced and shown as content with the lighter settings and very long, drawn-out shots. When all of a sudden the war struck upon them, they were much darker and quiet with less intimate shots. Bergman did a good job on allowing us to be consumed by the war ourselves and presenting an image of it the so adequately corresponded to war. Although the storyline itself was not too impressive, the content of the film was.


Shame represents a high point in the career of a master. Ingmar Bergman penetrating, existential study of a couple on the island of Gotland dealing with surviving a long war. Liv Ullman and Max Von Sydow give painfully detailed performances in this spare, stark drama. The films intensity rests in Bergman's keeping our focus on the minute, intimate relations of his two characters - both accomplished musicians - trapped in a landscape they have ceased to understand. We see the way the external pressures of the war complicate and corrode their relationship. Both characters are forced by the material circumstances of the war to betray their own sense of ethics. In one of the most powerful episodes Bergman forces us to reflect on the manipulative power of the cinematic medium by showing us a filmed interview with Ullman's character that has been re-edited and distorted for political effect by one side of the conflict and is used by the other side as evidence of war crimes in a brutal interrogation scene.


I should no longer be surprised when critics miss the most obvious things in works of art, because they are human beings, and the vast majority of human beings are lazy by nature. That said, the simplistic notion that Ingmar Bergman's great 1968 film Shame (or Skammen) is merely an anti-war film does a great deal of damage to the reputation of this very complex, and highly nuanced, film. Compared to its more filmically showoffy predecessors, Persona and Hour Of The Wolf, Shame is seemingly a more classic film, in terms of narrative. But, the key word is seemingly, for while it lacks the bravura pop psychologizing of Persona and the gaudy horror film homages of Hour Of The Wolf, it is one of the best films ever made about war- and not as an anti-war film, nor a pro-war film. As such, it has to rank with Wild Strawberries as one of his greatest films, as well as one of his best screenplays, if not the best.

Although ostensibly a more psychologically exterior film than the films that preceded it, it truly says far more realistic things about the human psyche and the will to survive. In it, Max Von Sydow and Liv Ullman play Jan and Eva Rosenberg (perhaps a nod at the infamous American spies, whom many European intellectuals felt were innocent), two musicians who used to play for the local philharmonic orchestra before a war broke out, and they retreated to live on a small plot of land on an island, content to working in a greenhouse. The country they live in is unnamed, as is the island they live on, although the film was made on Bergman's small island of Farö, just off the northern end of the Swedish Island of Göttland. It seems that their nation has been at war for some years with an invading country, or perhaps engaged in a civil war with rebels from another province. This is all left deliberately hazy, as this war is meant to symbolize all wars. This is reinforced as the film starts with assorted war quotes on the screen, as the credits roll. These include quotes from Hitler to Vietnam Era American military figures. After early scenes that depict the prosaic nature of their rural life, and then the coming of war, where even old men are conscripted, an aerial attack ravages the Rosenbergs' land, as enemy jets fly overhead, dropping bombs and what seems to be chemical weapons of an Agent Orange like nature. One plane is hit, and a parachutist jumps out and ends up hanging in a tree. Jan, who starts off the film as a sniveling coward, refuses to go and help, so Eva goes alone. Jan joins her and they find the pilot has been shot. It seems he is, indeed, part of the invading, or possibly rebel, force. A bunch of government soldiers soon stop at their home and ask questions about the dead pilot, then advise the couple to leave their home, as the Invaders are near. there are the misinterpretations of the film on a micro level, such as that of Bergman scholar Marc Gervais, who provides the film commentary on the DVD of the film. Like many other critics, he claims that Jacobi is a Quisling, who has collaborated with the Invaders. But, this is clearly and demonstrably wrong, for Jacobi is with the original Fascist government. As proof, first off, the Invaders are repelled after they invade the Rosenbergs' land and shoot their agitprop interview. We know this because the government that later questions them of the faked interview, and words put into Eva's mouth, see the film as supposed proof of their treason, and Jacobi is clearly working with them, the Fascist Big Brother statists. Secondly, Jacobi is in charge of deciding which of the townsfolk are sent to concentration camps, for collaborating with the Invaders, and the Rosenbergs, again, are among those spared. Thirdly, in his seduction of Eva, Jacobi tells her his son is on leave from the military, and clearly, if he was an Invader, he would not be speaking so happily of his son serving the state. Also, rebel forces are not official armies, and do not grant official leave. Lastly, Filip is clearly with the rebels, or Invaders, of the Organization, and why would he have killed a colleague?

That Gervais and other critics so blatantly and wantonly misinterpret and flat out miss such a key and manifest point of this film brings into question their ability to discern any and all aspects of all of Bergman's films. This is a wonderful and great film, and very high in the Berman canon, but it is disappointing to read how so few critics and viewers have really understand its complex message, instead opting out for the cheap, lazy, and easy claim of its being merely anti-war, and a rather simple film in comparison to its two showier predecessors. And that, in the long run, is the real shame of Shame.


This is a harrowing movie, and it moves relentlessly. Still it is utterly unique among war films in that it focuses exclusively on the civilian experience, the loss of humanity ordinary people undergo during wartime. The two young, married musicians undergo a slow, battering process of degradation at the hands of both sides of a civil war. Utterly stripped of sentimentality, the film offers a bleak vision of the modern world, and one I believe particularly recognizable to many Europeans. With brave, intense performances by Liv Ullmann (never better) and Max von Sydow (likewise). For my money, the most indelible film Bergman ever created.


Being a huge fan of Bergman I had to search literally years to find this movie (at a price less than $60 I mean) and finally bought it a few weeks ago. The basic premise of Bergmans films are the relationships between the characters and how they deal with trying situations. This film therefore is the same yet it is different because the setting is far different than most of the Bergman films the I have seen.

It is set in wartime and the heros are caught in the middle.

It is riveting from start to finish and it once again proves that Liv Ullman is one of the best actresses of the 20th century. A must see.


Bergman´s tale about how the hell of the war can drive a sensible couple of musicians to the barbarousness. With many memorable scenes throughout the film, I found particularly remarkable that close to the end where Ullmann and Von Sydow go in a boat completely surrounded by corpses of soldiers floating on the sea. A fascinating masterpiece!


Shame, is a Swedish film in Swedish with English subtitles. The film is about a husband and wife named Jan, and Eva. They live on an island working as farmers. There is a war going on and soldiers start attacking people on the island. Once the war subsides a little Jan, and Eva are arrested as going along with the opposite side. Once released even more trouble ensues and the film shows how two ordinary people will act in a situation of war and life or death. Winner of The CEC Award for Best Foreign Film at The Cinema Writers Circle Awards, The Guldbagge Award for Best Actress (Liv Ullman, who plays Eva) at The Guldbagge Awards, The NBR Award for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actress at The National Board Of Review and The NSFC Award for Best Actress, Best Director (Ingmar Bergman) and Best Film at The National Society Of Film Critics Awards. Shame, has good direction, a good script, good performances by both Max Von Sydow (who plays Jan) and Liv Ullman (who plays Eva), good cinematography and good production design. Shame, is a well acted and well made story of how people in a desperate situation will sometimes do whatever they can do in order to survive. The film has a powerful message and is a good film. The reason I'am not rating this film higher is because it is not a masterpiece like some other Ingmar Bergman films like Wild Strawberries, The Seventh Seal or Persona, for example. The film didn't have as big an impact on me as I thought it would and it lacked Ingmar Bergman's thoughtful and philosophical dialog. While nowhere close to being one of his best films there is still a lot to like about Shame, and it is a good movie. I just probably would have liked it more having not seen some of those other Bergman masterpieces.


It came as no surprise to me that this was a very depressing and draining movie. After all, it's all about the impact of war on civilians AND it's by the "king of depression", Ingmar Bergman. In other words, so many of Bergman's works delve deep into human misery and angst and so this movie seems not so extraordinary coming from this director.

Even though it is more difficult to watch, the last half of the movie offers perhaps more insight into the lower depths of humanity. That's because initially, the main characters (Liv Ullman and Max Von Sydow) try to overcome adversity and are basically decent (though a bit stupid) people. However, as deprivation after deprivation occurs, they (especially Von Sydow) become less and less humane and more animalistic--doing ANYTHING in order to survive.

Fun to watch, NO FREAKING WAY! But, an interesting insight into human nature.

PS--1 thing I LOVED about this film is that it avoided a stupid movie chiche. When the couple sat down with the shopkeeper to drink a glass or wine, they FINISHED the wine completely! In most movies, they barely touch their drinks or leave them untouched. It drives me crazy, as I would NEVER leave a $4 alcoholic beverage without drinking it unless it tasted terrible or had a bug floating in it! BRAVO!


Oh, it's an excellent piece of work, to be sure. In fact, several of the best scenes in cinema, or at least in Bergman's cinema, are to be found in this film. Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow are as good as you would expect. Do these two give bad performances? Sven Nykvist delivers some masterful, although unconventionally masterful, cinematography. The script is quite good, especially in individual scenes. Sometimes the film lags, and the pace is uneven, though probably intentionally.

So what's the problem? Well, the film is too bleak for its own good. Other Bergman films are similarly bleak, but nowhere near this harsh. Eventually, I just gave up and I started to become a little irritated. I was greatly affected often during the film, but, by the end, I felt uninvolved. It's a great film, but I doubt I'd ever watch it again, nor suggest it to friends. Or, if I did suggest it, I'd be very sure to warn them of what's ahead. 8/10.


After watching Ingmar Bergman's Skammen, I had many feelings, but most notably, I felt unsatisfied. I have heard so much hype about this movie but I came to find it lacking. Don't get me wrong, I can fully appreciate the artistic value of such a film, but as far as depth and emotion, I was not so impressed. I found the characters to be disagreeable and unrealistic, which detracted from the dramatic effect. In addition, the fact that the war was fake led me to feel that the emotion was not real. Dramatic war movies, in my opinion, are much more effective if the events (not necessarily the story itself) really happened. I find that of all the movies that try to show the brutality this one falls in the middle as far as effectiveness.


Anyone looking to learn more about the development of skateboarding should find Dogtown and Z-Boys adequate research material. This is not to be confused with Lords of Dogtown, that sorry Hollywood attempt to cash in on the success of the original Dogtown revival.

Directed by Stacey Peralta, a former Z-Boys himself as well as pro skater and mastermind behind the 80s Bones Brigade, and co-written with skateboarding photojournalist Craig Stecyk, this documentary traces how a group of surfing kids from Southern California's mean streets (known as Dogtown) who formed the Z-Boys skateboard team (actually there was one girl--Peggy Oki) revolutionized skateboarding. The film contains interviews from nearly all of the Z-Boys (Chris Cahill's whereabouts are unknown) with the most noteable being bad ass Tony Alva and the youngest, Jay Adams, who's talents (along with Perlata) seemed to transcend the rest of the teams. There are interviews of the team's (and the Dogtown shop) founders, surfboard designer Jeff Ho, Skip Engbloom, and Craig Stecyk. There are also interviews of folks like Tony Hawk (obviously), Ian McKaye (Fugazi), and Henry Rollins, who were young kids in the 70s when Dogtown was making it's influence on skateboarding (skateboarding was a whole other context in previous years as the documentary explains).

It really shows you not only who the Dogtown team was and how they formed, but why their style changed not only skateboarding tricks (pool skating became immensley popular, and thus gave way to vert skating), but also facilitated the sport (though not into the extreme commercialism it is today) as more than just the fleeting fad it had been earlier as these surfing kids who's waves ran out in the early morning needed ways to spend their time and eventually got into skateboarding. The days of Russ Howell and Alan Gelfand were long over as the Dogtown, at least through the publicity of their skate team, paved the way for the new generation of skaters. Because Dogtown got all the attention, they were able to push skating to the next step.

It's a great documentary in the way that it is put together, though Stacey Peralta always knew how to do this even when producing the Bones Brigade mini movies/skate demos like "Ban This" and "Search for Animal Chin." Narrated by Sean Penn, the film is accompanied by a fantastic soundtrack, contains lots of terrific archive footage, and lots of interview to give you a genuine feel of who the Z-Boys were and how they made their mark on skateboarding.


My skateboarding career ended in 1974 when my two-by-four skateboard with steel roller-skate wheels hit a rock and I tumbled, for days it seemed, down the sidewalk outside my parent's house in Boston. By the time the cast came off my arm, summer was gone.

But I have always admired the X-games types and surfers especially. I think I spent the first month after I moved to Southern California on the beaches and piers watching the surfers, bemoaning that fact that I had missed my calling. It's the sort of thing you should learn young, before the horrible senses of self-preservation and self-awareness burrow in. Or else at best, you'll be so worried about not getting hurt or laughed at, you'll wind up looking like a trained bear.

I always admired how a good surfer seems to not care about anything but that moment, that wave, that experience. At one with the forces of nature. A good surfer makes it look like there is nothing else but that wave right there, and the way you interact with it. There's a lot of Zen in it to me.

This documentary outlines how a few young folks took the surfing concepts and extended them to skateboarding. Ramps, downgrades, low sweeping curves while interacting with the cement waves beneath their feet. In their day and time, this was all new. radical. Prior to the Zephyr Skate team the idea apparently was to go as fast as you could in a straight line on a skateboard, hence my long "Evel Knievel at Caesers Palace" like tumble down the front walk.

This film is a look back through time, to an America before EVERYTHING was labeled, tagged, marketed, and jam-forced down our throats as "Extreme". (Seriously, what's so "extreme" about an "Extreme value meal" at Taco Bell? Other than the fact that it is an extreme hazard to your colon...)

Watch this film and watch the birth of 'extreme sports'. Before there was an X-games, before Boom-boom Huck-Jam, before Crusty Demons, before the ASA...there were these young street urchins who created 'extreme sports' without really trying. They were just doing it for the purity, the pure pleasure, of skateboarding in the sun with friends.

I hope they get a cut of the 'extreme' money out there. Goodness knows they don't get the credit they deserve. Maybe this film can correct that.

Excellent film with a great soundtrack, a portrait of a Southern California, indeed an America, that no longer exists.

I don't care for Sean Penn but he does a decent job narrating.


Being in the suburbs of New York when the Z-Boys were creating history in Dogtown, I was only exposed to a glimpse of what was going on. I had a P-O-S Black Knight skateboard with clay wheels. It is long gone, and on the ash heap of my personal life. But I never forgot. It's like watching long-lost brothers and friends, and it hits me right where I live. I cannot watch this film enough. Every time I view it, some other aspect rises to the top, some other viewpoint come into sharp focus. The vintage footage, the incredible stills, the current personalities intermeshed with the vivid shadows of the brightly lit past, the heartfelt and not over-done narrative, all beautifully edited together in such a way as to make a landmark documentary of a genuine slice of American history. In the words of Glen Friedman - "It was F-ing unbelievable."


If you have ever been, has a friend, or a kid that is or was into skating at one time, then watch this flick!. I have seen it several times and I get something new out of it every time that I see it. It reminded me of why I got into skating in the first place (a long time ago) . It reminded me of what skating brings to a person and I have found will also help a person who doesn't understand why skaters, well, skate. Sure there is a very dark side to the whole seen, which the movie does touch on slightly. But it tends to focus more on what is at the core of skating. Just a person on a board, doing it because they love to do it. This movie was so inspirational to me that I'm now skating once again (I'm 32) and I haven't been this happy with my self in years.. Give this one a go, you will not be disappointed.