I started to watch this movie with my dad – when he first saw it playing he said that he remembers watching parts of it and that it is an excellent film. This was about what I have heard about it. In Internet I saw that there are many shortened versions of the movie – but since my version comes on 4 CDs and is more than 5 hours long I believe that I have the complete version. Tonight I saw the first hour of it . My impressions are mixed – it is not as good as I expected – but at the same time it has some powerful and fun scenes. Being a fan of coming of age movies I should note that the story so far seems to follow the life of two boys – the master`s son and a son of a peasant . They seem to get well together without any reserves to each other . There is a fair amount of nudity and violence in the movie – for example a man cut off his ear, the boys were shown nude…etc – which I guess will make the movie not suitable for very young viewers …

I saw the rest of the movie – and now can definitely say that it is totally not suitable for everyone due to the sexual scenes, excessive amount of violence included implied rape . It is very heavy film to watch , but at the same time it does not evoke a range of emotions – but rather disgust and anger. Once you decide to see it you will be rewarded with excellent chromatography and very complicated plot. I would mention the reaction of my Dad when he saw one of the scenes – he said that you have to be with sick mind to film like that. Now I have seen more disturbing movies that 1900 , but have to agree that it is filmed in an unique way – which is probably why it gets such a positive reviews from almost everyone who saw it. Also it is the kind of movie that will stick to your mind for a long time – my Dad first saw it many years ago when he was as young as I am now – and still remembered some scenes of it and most of the characters playing .

There are many references to politics in this movie – socialism, communism , fascism…etc. I have absolutely no interest in politics – and in the movie fascists are shown as real monsters , communists as liberators – and socialist as free will people – but than that`s just the impression the movie left in me – may be it is different in the real life. There is probably a deeper meaning in these movements – but I guess one has to be a bit older than me to know what they are about ( or have studies politics or something).

I will finish my review here and will let you see a scene of the movie – at the end I can not really say if I recommend this movie or not.It is good movie – but should be approached with caution for reasons I mentioned above.

Much better clip from the movie can be seen here

Wikipedia (link) Imdb (link)