I used to hate open-ended movies. Now, I'm more mellow about it because I know that sometimes that air of mystery and wonder should be preserved.Not this time. I really wanted to see some resolution here, if only to justify the two and a half hour runtime. But I didn't get what I wanted. Instead I got Village of the Damned in German.
It's just before WWI and the kids in this provincial town are evil little bastards. You can almost feel bad for them, though, because every adult is also an evil bastard. They abuse their children physically, psychologically, and sexually and then wonder how things get so out of hand. Jesus. The only good one is the school teacher/narrator who is just trying to marry the Baron's nanny.
It starts when someone ties a tripwire across a riding path and nearly kills the town doctor. Then, the baron's son is found caned bloody, someone burns down a barn, and the local mentally disabled child is beaten so badly he might be permanently blinded. The teacher thinks the preacher's kids are the ringleaders but has no power to do anything.
I'm sure this whole movie was some big veiled Comment on the state of Europe or some such, but I didn't get it at all. I thought it was awful.
No comments:
Post a Comment