This movie about a young man coming to terms with his destiny as a farmer after his father commits suicide due to the pressure put on the agricultural sector with the madcow crisis etc etc has gone wrong on several points:
It was way too long. If this would have been about 90 minutes it would have been much more endurable, but in my opinion it just droned on and on, actually not going really anywhere.
The script. There are plotholes the size of a decent meteor crater here. Too much is left to guess for. The grandfather becomes this senile old man overnight... come on, and nobody even wonders why that is. What did the family do with the old farm? Did they sell it, abandon it, what is it? And the relationship of the young man with the older woman is kept from the audience way too long to become anything that amounts to anything.
Characterization. Almost all the characters are as flat as a dollar bill. Sure the mother has an affair. Grandpa becomes senile. But this doesn't make any impact on the audience, we just don't care. The little sister keeps dreaming of going to the big city, but that is just as far as that character goes. And the young man decides to retract into the mountains with his family to become a farmer, he has been kicking and screaming to get the hell out of there and all of a sudden he wants to get down in the pre-historic dirt like his father, oh please, give us a break.
On a more positive note there is the photography. This is all nicely shot, but after seeing the umpteenth sunset/rise and more trees in the mist this becomes a little stale.
Overall not a good movie, but I give a 6 for the effort.
6/10
It was way too long. If this would have been about 90 minutes it would have been much more endurable, but in my opinion it just droned on and on, actually not going really anywhere.
The script. There are plotholes the size of a decent meteor crater here. Too much is left to guess for. The grandfather becomes this senile old man overnight... come on, and nobody even wonders why that is. What did the family do with the old farm? Did they sell it, abandon it, what is it? And the relationship of the young man with the older woman is kept from the audience way too long to become anything that amounts to anything.
Characterization. Almost all the characters are as flat as a dollar bill. Sure the mother has an affair. Grandpa becomes senile. But this doesn't make any impact on the audience, we just don't care. The little sister keeps dreaming of going to the big city, but that is just as far as that character goes. And the young man decides to retract into the mountains with his family to become a farmer, he has been kicking and screaming to get the hell out of there and all of a sudden he wants to get down in the pre-historic dirt like his father, oh please, give us a break.
On a more positive note there is the photography. This is all nicely shot, but after seeing the umpteenth sunset/rise and more trees in the mist this becomes a little stale.
Overall not a good movie, but I give a 6 for the effort.
6/10