Product Details

• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000IUY210
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #491,565 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars true sleeper film with highest regards-Dardenne Brothers fans will appreciate this, February 18, 2008

By 

crash worship (Bay Area, Ca) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spare Parts (DVD)

First off, this is a "film movement" movie. I wouldn't have known about it except that when I was unemployed I went to the library to get dvd's. After awhile I started to look for any dvd that was released from this dvd release club. The movies are from all around the world and they are mostly much better than average.

"Spare parts" stands out in my mind because it blends the geography, economics, and history of Slovenia to give this story momentum forward in a naturalistic manner. The characters have a life of their own much like what the Dardenne brothers are doing with their own movies. Had a large distributer picked this movie up it would have become an arthouse favorite.

If you liked "Rosetta," "The Promise," "The Child," and /or "The Son" then you will certainly enjoy this film.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The cost of doing business . . ., October 8, 2007

By 

Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spare Parts (DVD)

This downbeat film from Slovenia follows the lives of two men who illegally transport third-world refugees across the border into Italy. Set against the noisy excitement of motorcycle racing and the ominous presence of a huge nuclear power complex, the danger of their own illicit work takes on a kind of dreary routine, in which death and misfortune become simply part of the cost of doing business. Lost and without a future, Ludvik has only his past glory as a racing champion to give his life some meaning. Meanwhile, mourning the loss of a young wife who has died of cancer, he chain smokes and drinks himself regularly into oblivion.

His young assistant, Rudi, is a novice at this kind of self-obliteration, objecting at first to the callousness of the men who transport the refugees and appalled when he learns of the fate that awaits many of them. But as the film progresses, he too surrenders to the mind-numbing conditions of his line of work - an occupation that has ironically sprung into being with the birth of the European Union. At the end of the film, Ludvik ruefully observes that Hitler also attempted to create a unified Europe, though he went to "extremes," but this trafficking in humans is no different in its effect - the death of the soul.

5.0 out of 5 stars "When Ludvic raced motorcycles ... ", October 13, 2011

By 

HIRAM "The Widow's Son" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Spare Parts (DVD)

SPARE PARTS (a/k/a "Rezervni deli" in Slovenian, 2003, Slovenian with English subtitles, 87 minutes) shows an ugly side of Eastern Europe which I hope is mostly gone now. Ludvic (Peter Musevski), a hard-drinking chimneystack of a man, smuggles illegal immigrants of all kinds from the Eastern Bloc (Slovenia) into Europe proper. Apparently he's been doing it for many years.

Young Rudi (Aljoa Kovaèiè who is also known as Aljosa Kovacic), apparently an orphan, is his sidekick and assistant. Ludvic is as close to a father as Rudi has - they smuggle human cargo together, chatting as if on any ordinary job while sweating bullets over their charges. They do genuinely care about the immigrants, but what can they do? As part of a smuggling ring, they tend to be hardened, heartless and practically subhuman - a phenomenon that seems pandemic all over Europe.

This film is terribly sad and a seemingly endless, depressing cycle of pointlessness. Ludvic, once the motorcycle racing champion of Slovenia, is dying of cancer. I leave it to you to watch this and decide just what sort of life lessons this film teaches. It should not go completely unappreciated in American eyes, since we know a bit about the "coyotes", smugglers who bring in Mexicans and others across the Mexican border.

The simple present actions of this film will bring tears to your eyes, guaranteed. The production is excellent and the acting is superb. It is a typically slow, pointless and depressing-looking Euro-job, but I think as with all such films you'll find a certain meaning of life if you watch closely. Although there is swearing and an ugly (though blessedly not shown) situation with a young lady, this is a straightforward watch and I recommend it even for teens as educational.

Sometimes high art is in the weirdest places.

Incidentally, "spare parts" is a reference to what happens when Italians smuggle the immigrants: the immigrants are killed and their organs sold on the black market, hence "spare parts".

"At least they don't end up as spare parts with us," Ludvic tells Rudi. "A liver alone can go for 15,000 Euros."