I think it's best to start with what this film does best.
The cast is amazing - every face is one to remember and each do their job very well. The look of this film is also very credible and captures the stunning scenery in a very professional way. I also had nothing to complain about the editing, grading and overall pacing of "Das finstere Tal" - it bears nothing unusual which might jeopardize your enjoyment...
And that's exactly the problem with it. While I was let to believe to see something new I got a very uncreative recycling of things I already know and not necessarily like.
First of all - this "guy comes back to a village for a killing spree to avenge his family" is something we have seen I don't know how many times. Furthermore I didn't get caught by surprise at ANY moment since the story is extremely linear and doesn't contain even one twist.
Film experts always tell me that a great movie shows character development, meaning that at the beginning we have a protagonist who grows over the course of the story and is somehow wiser at the end. This just doesn't happen here. Guy comes, does his business, and leaves, full stop.
I have seen this film at a theater with a friend from Austria. He told me that basically each actor speaks a different dialect (which I started noticing too after he told me). That's interesting since they're all from the same small village. At some point it's almost too obvious, especially when even brothers speak a different "language". This is really sad because it is something that the director was particularly proud of.
The music, well, and there was the music. The low points are definitely beginning and end when some poppy songs are played that aren't even good but rather corny and generic - but one look at the credits hints that one composer is related to the director (so one can imagine how that happened). The rest of the music is an ambitious attempt to sound international - not bad, but not really good either.
Sam Riley really shines and glues this film together. His German is quite credible and he delivers a performance that probably even exceeds the script - which is fairly generic and, like I already said, very linear.
"Das finstere Tal" is further proof that Austrian cinema is becoming a player on international ground. It looks good, feels good and follows known traditions and standards. But on the other hand this is also the fatal flaw of this film - it doesn't surprise at any point, contains no twist and doesn't transcend anything we have seen until now.
The cast is amazing - every face is one to remember and each do their job very well. The look of this film is also very credible and captures the stunning scenery in a very professional way. I also had nothing to complain about the editing, grading and overall pacing of "Das finstere Tal" - it bears nothing unusual which might jeopardize your enjoyment...
And that's exactly the problem with it. While I was let to believe to see something new I got a very uncreative recycling of things I already know and not necessarily like.
First of all - this "guy comes back to a village for a killing spree to avenge his family" is something we have seen I don't know how many times. Furthermore I didn't get caught by surprise at ANY moment since the story is extremely linear and doesn't contain even one twist.
Film experts always tell me that a great movie shows character development, meaning that at the beginning we have a protagonist who grows over the course of the story and is somehow wiser at the end. This just doesn't happen here. Guy comes, does his business, and leaves, full stop.
I have seen this film at a theater with a friend from Austria. He told me that basically each actor speaks a different dialect (which I started noticing too after he told me). That's interesting since they're all from the same small village. At some point it's almost too obvious, especially when even brothers speak a different "language". This is really sad because it is something that the director was particularly proud of.
The music, well, and there was the music. The low points are definitely beginning and end when some poppy songs are played that aren't even good but rather corny and generic - but one look at the credits hints that one composer is related to the director (so one can imagine how that happened). The rest of the music is an ambitious attempt to sound international - not bad, but not really good either.
Sam Riley really shines and glues this film together. His German is quite credible and he delivers a performance that probably even exceeds the script - which is fairly generic and, like I already said, very linear.
"Das finstere Tal" is further proof that Austrian cinema is becoming a player on international ground. It looks good, feels good and follows known traditions and standards. But on the other hand this is also the fatal flaw of this film - it doesn't surprise at any point, contains no twist and doesn't transcend anything we have seen until now.