Lore

Cate Shortland reprises the themes of her previous feature Somersault with another tale about another girl who came down in the last shower, a hard rain that dumps her unarmed into a world corrupted. In Somersault, Abbie Cornish's performance as an 8 year old in the body of an 18 year old lent a particular strangeness to its coming of age scenario. Lore is more naturalistic but set in the heightened circumstances of a fallen post-Nazi Germany. For the most part Lore is beautifully wrought. Its only failing is that the heroine learns pretty much exactly what you'd expect her to learn about her ubermensch upbringing, and expresses her final disillusionment in a pique of underwhelming metaphor. more at moviedump.org

For me this was a moving story which was well told however it didn't condescend to the audience and assumed that we had a basic understanding of WW2 and its implications including some kind of empathy with the characters and how confusing and traumatic it would have been to go through what they did at that time. I appreciated the ambivalent feelings Lore had towards Thomas and really relished in those moments where their eyes met and there was such a mix of tension, resistance and desire. I really wanted there to be something between them and I believe Lore did too in the end but it was all too late. I think Thomas maybe blamed himself a bit for the death of Gunter. I don't know why he walked away from them but then I don't know if the Grandmother would have had him in her home in the end as she seemed like a bit of a hard bitch. Beautiful camera work and the soundtrack was perfect.

To tell the truth, I didn't really buy into it because I found it long, slow and boring. But with hindsight, I think it's a film that is part of a genre of cinema that I don't necessarily subscribe to, in a global way. However, I can't deny that it is very aesthetic (the colors, the way of filming) and the editing is quite dynamic, leaving me with the impression that this mix of close-ups (which I didn't understand any other use) and subjective camera was trying to hide the slowness of the story. But there is certainly an "artistic" dimension that escaped me. I would therefore recommend to anyone who hesitates, to watch it anyway, because it is undeniable that this film has a potential that may not escape you.

Well done performances all around especially by the lead Saskia Rosendahl. Cate Shortland did a well done and well executed movie. Like most reviewers said, the ending wraps it up if you are patient. It is a period piece at the end of WW2 and focuses chiefly on this family and how it slowly tears them apart; but in the end it changes their overall outlook on the true enemies of the war.

That's about it. The relationship between the German girl and the Jewish boy is not believable - no 14-year-old German girl in the 1940s is going to initiate anything sexual, especially with a Jewish boy. The baby is continually crying. One closeup after another, probably because of the low budget, and they conveniently encounter practically no one so it could take place anywhere anytime. Finally the boy leaves. Why we don't know. No script, no directing, no acting.

A family of five children, left alone from their parents, is forced to travel through Germany searching for their grandma and some peace. It ain't easy to make a movie so weak about the WWII aftermath, but Lore try his best. Children, death and despair all together should suggest some tears but not in this case. The young characters are confused and confusing, the cinematography serve the only purpose to bask itself in close up and flares and everything, despite the argument, is beautiful and equal, just like a commercial. The director had a good story to tell - from an unoriginal point of view I must say - but she ends portraying only the doubts of a Nazi teenager