Dang, should have figured that Mohammad did the score for this (since I almost own their whole discography)! I feel like their Involvement is an integral part of the movie actually working as moody and slow as it plays out. I'm not sure if I'd recommend the movie as despite me liking it somewhat, it also feels like it offers little else than the atmosphere for the time being.
i enjoyed the movie.
it's about what you see and your interpretation of what you see.
I'd like to read some deeper thoughts about it.
So this film is the pinnacle of all bullshit, a woman leaning over milking a goat, but that's too much. Absolutely lifeless, just waiting for the next bullshit in the film to see the whole film is just one big boredom waiting for something to happen. Unfortunately, nothing interesting comes just another nonsensical scene. Well, you can see that the film was made by the Germans under the baton of an Austrian director. Nevermore. Sorry my English is bad.
The atmosphere is.... strong. The film is shot gorgeously. Had to get that out of the way.
I like slow movies usually, but this movie was an utterly unrewarding experience. The obvious themes of motherhood and superstition are barely explored and everything feels like just a string of random events.
I didn't have this problem with The VVitch or anything by Nicolas Winding Refn.
It is more “slow” than “burn.”
Review by BronsonBlockedParent2022-07-08T03:07:42Z— updated 2022-08-19T15:37:50Z
Okay, where do I begin with this? Hagazussa is slow, like painfully slow. Nothing happens, absolutely nothing. The dialog could fit on maybe three pages of a screenplay. There is no explanation for what is shown, it's just a collection of shots. If you cut out all of the moments with trees, and mountains, this would be a thirty-minute movie.
With a film like this, I don't know where, if anywhere, a line would be drawn between what is a spoiler, and what is just a basic detail, because there is no substance. That being said, I'm going to write out all that transpires within the film.
A mother, and daughter (Albrun) live in a remote house in the woods. Men gather outside one night and call them witches. The mother becomes sick, possibly molests her daughter, she dies. Many years later, Albrun is still living in the house, but with a baby. Albrun goes into town to sell goat milk, and kids throw rocks at her and call her a witch. Swinda, a villager, tells the boys to stop, and she walks with Albrun. Albrun goes to see a guy, who gives her a skull, maybe her mother's - who knows! Albrun milks goats. Swinda, and Albrun talk, and Swinda mentions that heathens, and jews, in the area, rape and impregnate women - insinuating that's how Albrun's baby was conceived . Swinda then gets a guy to... possibly rape Albrun - it's totally unclear what happens. Swinda says that Albrun stinks - for reasons. Albrun finds what is probably goat skin, rolled into a ball, containing a heart - maybe... something... what do you want from me?Albrun puts a dead rat in a stream - likely the town's water supply - then pisses on it. We see a monk wheeling a dead body over to a pile of dead bodies - likely from the rat-piss water. Albrun goes deep into the woods, eats a mushroom, goes into a pond, drowns her baby, sees her mother in the water, something with blood - it's a mirky mess. Albrun goes home. She finds her dead baby, then eats her corpse, she pukes, the mushrooms kick in - wait, does that mean they hadn't already kicked in while she was in the woods? She sees her mother, either as a ghost or a hallucination - who cares? She leaves the house, and possibly bursts into flames - the shot is so far away it's next to impossible to discern what is going on... look, something or someone is on fire. The end.
So, that's the entire movie. Seriously. I shouldn't be able to transcribe all of the action from a 102-minute movie in a paragraph.
I take it the movie is supposed to be about grief, isolation, and hating outsiders, but that can all be conveyed with dialog, and a story that is clear. I hate to tell Lukas Feigelfeld this, but he can still make a movie with trees, mountains, slow one-take shots of people doing nothing, and have characters talk; you know, have a story in there. Just being cryptic does not make your movie better than all the other films that bothered to write a fleshed-out screenplay. Lazy, boring writing is not the same as depth.
Come on, even arthouse snobs have to admit this one is garbage.