I realize that foreign films won't necessarily follow the formula of american-made films.
About three-quarters of the way in, this movie actually just made me angry. It has this bizarre, languid unemotional context and the actors had a very flat way of speaking. So devoid of emotion that I actually thought it was dubbed because often dubbed movies can't reflect what the actors were portraying as far as emotions, so dubbed speech always has a flat quality.
There were points in there where the scene before doesn't make any sense for the scene afterward or the reaction of the characters. For example, when the husband gets beat up and goes missing and she wakes up without a care in the world. Or when the husband is passed out, and instead of escaping right away, she takes time to recover the furniture.
It was just strange and bizarre. You never find out why these people are so afraid. You don't know if it's the Russian mafia after the building. You don't know if the people are afraid of ghosts. You don't know if it's the gateway to the portal of hell and that's why people wouldn't enter the building.
It's very very strange. If you go with the Russian mafia possible aspect, then you have to say, well, they don't want to be seen anywhere near the property because, you know, someone really powerful has their eye on it and waiting for her to sell it to them.
Were they just staring at the couple when they arrive, simply because they were foreigners? Or because the house is haunted? Why the hostility at Central Archives? Why did the woman say that she was surprised she hadn't been arrested yet? Arrested for what? Were they just staring at the couple when they arrived simply because they were foreigners? Hostility nothing more than I don't like Americans who can't speak Russian? Simply that I'm lazy and I don't want to have to go through the archives?
And even when she was supposed to go away with the couple to the airport and you see her standing on the street I actually thought perhaps when her husband hit her in her head, she had actually died and that was simply her ghost going back into the house.
Lots of unanswered questions that didn't create a mystery, just annoyance.
The good about this movie is you get to see the beautiful city and you also get to see this beautiful building and hopefully that was the interior of the building. If so it was absolutely gorgeous.
Good cinematography with a bunch of camera angles that were supposed to be, I guess, innovative or artistic that didn't make any sense, but you thought you would find out later why they had these angles. Overall, it just didn't make a heck of a lot of sense. It could have been so much more. Acting was pretty wooden. Voice acting was flat with little inflection. Questions that you would have asked went unanswered. For example the old woman says well the men they always watch the house now the follow-up question that would have been why did the men stand outside and just watch the house? The woman never asked, why. She never went up to the man to ask why they were standing in the street staring at the house.
Maybe it was meant to be a dream cuz I certainly look like everyone was sleepwalking through this.
About three-quarters of the way in, this movie actually just made me angry. It has this bizarre, languid unemotional context and the actors had a very flat way of speaking. So devoid of emotion that I actually thought it was dubbed because often dubbed movies can't reflect what the actors were portraying as far as emotions, so dubbed speech always has a flat quality.
There were points in there where the scene before doesn't make any sense for the scene afterward or the reaction of the characters. For example, when the husband gets beat up and goes missing and she wakes up without a care in the world. Or when the husband is passed out, and instead of escaping right away, she takes time to recover the furniture.
It was just strange and bizarre. You never find out why these people are so afraid. You don't know if it's the Russian mafia after the building. You don't know if the people are afraid of ghosts. You don't know if it's the gateway to the portal of hell and that's why people wouldn't enter the building.
It's very very strange. If you go with the Russian mafia possible aspect, then you have to say, well, they don't want to be seen anywhere near the property because, you know, someone really powerful has their eye on it and waiting for her to sell it to them.
Were they just staring at the couple when they arrive, simply because they were foreigners? Or because the house is haunted? Why the hostility at Central Archives? Why did the woman say that she was surprised she hadn't been arrested yet? Arrested for what? Were they just staring at the couple when they arrived simply because they were foreigners? Hostility nothing more than I don't like Americans who can't speak Russian? Simply that I'm lazy and I don't want to have to go through the archives?
And even when she was supposed to go away with the couple to the airport and you see her standing on the street I actually thought perhaps when her husband hit her in her head, she had actually died and that was simply her ghost going back into the house.
Lots of unanswered questions that didn't create a mystery, just annoyance.
The good about this movie is you get to see the beautiful city and you also get to see this beautiful building and hopefully that was the interior of the building. If so it was absolutely gorgeous.
Good cinematography with a bunch of camera angles that were supposed to be, I guess, innovative or artistic that didn't make any sense, but you thought you would find out later why they had these angles. Overall, it just didn't make a heck of a lot of sense. It could have been so much more. Acting was pretty wooden. Voice acting was flat with little inflection. Questions that you would have asked went unanswered. For example the old woman says well the men they always watch the house now the follow-up question that would have been why did the men stand outside and just watch the house? The woman never asked, why. She never went up to the man to ask why they were standing in the street staring at the house.
Maybe it was meant to be a dream cuz I certainly look like everyone was sleepwalking through this.