Customer Reviews

13 Tzameti [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - United Kingdom ]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I first heard about this movie,honestly,didn't think much.What could have been so new in the kind of story?...Yeah.
The creator of this film is my fellow countryman and I just had natural interest to see it.And now I say only this:-the director is the one,who absolutely knows where he is heading,and he is dragging you along,untill you fill a taste in your mouth.Simplisity,greatness.
Cast act is solid.Always pleased to see such a piece of work.

I caught this film the very last showing of its brief 6-day stint at the Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Conveniently located six blocks from my apartment. I had asked some of the ticket-takers about it the week before when I saw A Scanner Darkly, and they all maintained it was dangerously compelling.
Why this had such limited distribution here is a mystery. For an end-of-the-summer release, it almost totally eclipsed about 100% of any action-thriller type swill that had been the steady offering of the big studio garbage-dispenser since early January. But I really think it's a hard-as-nails film and if you are recalcitrant to watch violent films, stay away. Otherwise, indulge in a sick and mesmerizing story.

The rumour mill was on overtime in conjunction to this movie as to its supposed bleak expressionism, intensity and cold harshness. I trusted the critics for once and blindly bought the movie. I thought it was rather disappointing.
The story is simply about a young man getting mixed up as a contestant in a rather sick variety of russian roulette, held in some house in the French countryside, his only motives in doing so being curiosity and expecting a shortcut in scoring a lot of money. That's it, where is the deep meaning behind this that I keep hearing about? The lengths to which men are prepared to go? Hardly a revelation I'd think, comnsidering the world we're living in, where we see the day to day horrors on the news that make what the contestants in this movie go through look like a picknick.

What came to mind in my case was the famous Russian roulette scene in The Deer Hunter, but at least there it had a point: A man tortured by his memories of captivity during the Vietnam war loses himself and his best friend tries to save him and fulfill his promise to not leave him behind, in vain however. Now thát had meaning and a dramatic context that personally moved me deeply, because of the way the humanity and at the same time the tragedy of its loss were depicted.

In 13 Tzameti, it's simply the urge for a quick buck that drives the main protagonist and so I hardly cared whatever happened to him.
The side story line of a police investigation into the clandestine gatherings went nowhere and didn't contribute anything.
The reason I still give the movie 2 stars is its beautiful black&white cinematography.

You, yeah you pansies & eunuchs inc., if for once in your life would like to feel the burning coldness of the existence, please I beg you not to miss this unique work of dynamic expressionism. It's gonna blow your brains out, sweethearts.