Customer Reviews

Death in Love [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Honestly, I rented this because I find Josh Lucas to have an emotional honesty lacking in most actors and I look for his work. He did not disappoint, nor did the rest of the cast. I had an instinct that this film would be hard to watch because I countered it with "Have you heard about the Morgans"..so I was not wrong to pair it with this film. It has a rare sexual rawness that is disturbing, and images of concentration camp experiments that sicken your heart. For all the nakedness and sex, it actually told an important part of the story for a change. It's about how the horror of one young woman's experience of being abandoned by her family in Nazi Germany, to be put in a concentration camp, falling in love with a German doctor, abandoned again, then how it affects her two sons lives years later. It is a film that left ME to think through what I saw, and it brought up feelings about my own experiences, and it left me feeling like I'd seen a story told which has the potential to heal. The purpose of art. A commercial movie is all neatly wrapped up in a non offensive package with how to feel and interpret it, whereas here I was watching their story but interested in my own reactions and judgements and 'allowing' myself to watch this movie with the curtains open...I took an acting class and was fascinated how it felt to explore that process...and this film made me feel that intensity like no other film ever has...it was only after watching the actors and the director's comments about how they felt, that I see that for them it was that same feeling...the terror doing something that makes you want to run the other direction, but once you do it, you have a fierceness no one can take away. We are all filled with judgements about things, about how we should live and how much we will allow ourselves to be happy, and this film, on so many levels, lets you explore that. It is interesting that I am seeing this film as I'm struggling with family issues, so I would say, if you are drawn to this movie, then most definitely watch it, but get a comedy for later....it is intense and will likely affect you. It's not a film that I would watch over and over..but I won't forget that it said to me to rethink what I've told myself based on what I experienced as a child. I"m willing to be happier than that! Watch the featurettes and interwiews...

This film is not for every one becouse it will shock,offend,and psychologically assult you. It might even show you the dark place you might be in but dont want to see and what could happen if you don't get out of it. If you are attracted to films that are psychologically dark, surreal,and uncompromising like the works of Luis Buneul, David Lynch, and Claude Chabral then this film is for you. This films commentary is a must listen to if what the film is about flew over your head. I viewed it on blu ray its a bit grainy but if you get engrossed in the story like i did you will not notice it.

Normally I would not rate a BD this high if it has nothing to offer for hidef clarity and sound, but the performances by everyone here make it a higher rating. The content is extremely disturbing, from that beginning montage of lovemaking and human butchery, to that last scene of misery, pain and release. I had been warned ahead of time to expect extreme dysfunction in all of the relationships shown, from the concentration camps to 1990s NY, so hopefully this will help a little.

The story follows a concentration camp survivor, later played by Bisset, who with her two sons (played very well by Brody and Lucas) fill a life of guilt, morose relationships and shallow emotions. As the story progresses we are intermittently subjected to harsh visuals from the war years to modern day abusive lovemaking. A difficult watch through and through, but it should not detract from the believability of the performances. The BD clarity is non-existent in all scenes, with prevalent grain and focus issues from the hand-helds at various times. The sound was selectable between standard 5.1 and DTS, which is used with most clarity in that final scene. The supplements are thorough and include:

* 5 interviews totaling 11:39 minutes, all lodef. Main cast and crew discuss their reasons for being in/making the film. Has a play all option.
* 5 featurettes totaling 26:18 minutes, intermittent HD clarity in some of the interviews and behind the scenes shots, most lodef. Play all option. The longest featurette contains interviews from all of the parties akin to the lengthy lovemaking requirements. Probably the rawest input you will hear from this many actors about doing these kinds of scenes. I did not even recognize Baccarin (remember her most from Serenity [Blu-ray]) until her interview. The Sundance intro and Q&A are the standard material from a release there.

Region A coded, with English subs only. Difficult to recommend as a content film, definitely not a Blu, but a solid performance piece for the people involved. Have noticed the BD is priced lower than the DVD so this might be a good catch if you are looking to buy.

It should have been called "The Male Booty Movie"! Every ten minutes some guy is showing his butt. Either he's getting busy with a woman or mastering his domain. Don't get me wrong: long live men's butts! Still, this sure had a lot of them, especially for a non-rainbow-flag film. If you like the male buttocks, then here's some excellent eye candy for you. Happy New Year!!!

This is an awesome movie. It's unique, and definitely not your conventional action or drama, but it's remarkably well done.

It's also a definite R+. If you are scared off by horror, gore, or violence, much less sex and more sex, don't buy it. However, for the adults in the audience, it's awesome. I highly recommend it to those who want to watch a good movie and are not scared off by archaic moral or ethics systems.

I got this DVD because of Jacqueline Bisset. It wasn't a great movie but it was to see Jacqueline Bisset in a movie.

great cast depressing script if you are into stories about sick, messed up people, or just want to be able to say well at least my family really looks normal in comparison, I hated it but I did watch it all. Just not what I watch movies for.

The film begins with a dramatic portrayal of a kind of perverted love story, the traumatic bonding between a Nazi Doctor and a female prisoner; a young woman abandoned by her parents escaping Nazi Germany leaving her behind, alone, and how she sacrifices the last of her self respect in order to survive Nazi captivity. Surviving that captivity and suffering from the effects of her trauma unknown to her, she marries and becomes the mother of two sons living in New York City. What follows are the desperate measures by the family in grappling with the results of the mother's failure at managing her life and how, like a virus, her abusive past has infected her two sons and the people they are involved with, now adult men trying to cope with the lives they have inherited.

To me Death In Love is a depiction of the hidden cruelty within our society as a whole, the incapacity to truly love, the sado-masochism hiding behind what we blindly accept as being for our benefit or best interest. The film was better than expected. I was hesitant in viewing it based on the previews I watched but I have rarely been misled by Bisset's choices in her roles or films and they have surprised me recently, so I felt compelled to see it. This film is different than The Fine Art of Love as the rage is seriously repressed and the cruelty not so obvious. In Death In Love the anger and rage being reenacted is abounding, real and often frightening.

If you want to be enlightened and know nothing about post traumatic stress disorder, traumatic bonding or Stockholm syndrome, then this is a film to see that leaves little hidden from view.

The acting is excellent and believable.

Do not miss the very beginning of this movie when the mother character walks past the cells with people suffering from Nahtzee medical experiments. Seeing is not the same as reading about it. Well, even Jews have dumb narcissists who endanger everyone and throw other people under the bus as if it weren't even happening. That's the kind of person depicted in this movie. Because her kids never figure her out, they are hampered in their assessments of the outside world as well and so she created and instilled a downfall for each of her children and they have no idea they have been fed a fatal dosage. I'm sure that off camera, the ending is that her "boyfriend" kills her. I see this movie as the less entertaining companion piece to Lady Gaga's concentration camp music video for Bad Romance.