Review of The Four Times (2010) by Margaret U — 03 Oct 2010

Run, don't walk, from this movie. It is excruciatingly boring and this from a person who likes slow movies. Think minimum of one-minute-long takes focused on the same subject where absolutely nothing happens.

The message was supposed to be quite deep, I suppose, but it really wasn't "all that" -- instead rather mundane. Numerous flaws were evident -- the same goat wasn't even used throughout "the goat's" life (you could see from its markings), and at one point you could see that it was tied up so that it couldn't go far where instead it was supposed to have been stuck in a ditch.

The landscape and village shots were supposed to be very beautiful, but actually they were nothing special and the colour washed out, at that. At one of the scenes which was supposed to be beautiful, I actually closed my eyes to rest from the crushing monotony of the film.

A few forced laughs came at some of the scenes but it seemed more like people were just grasping at straws at something in the movie. If I hadn't been with friends, I would have walked out. For some reason this won best film at the Reykjavik International Film Festival, but the clapping at the end of the screening to a packed theatre was at most half-hearted -- I imagine only the most artsy-fartsy could think this was a good film.

Its only redeeming features was that it showed old-fashioned life in Italy and how charcoal is made, which was probably the most interesting thing of the film.