The run time of this film is 1:45mins. I'm not alone in feeling that this would have been just as powerful and perhaps more so if an hour had been cut from it. Perhaps 45mins. Surely by now everyone knows the plot and the symbolism and the message that warns us to not live behind the wall of what is happening today.
The length of the film allowed a certain element of worthy self indulgent filmmaking to creep in and to my mind detract from what started out as powerful and understated.
But there is the nub of the problem for me. It goes nowhere slowly. In normalising the life of the commandant and his family we have to watch 1:30 mins of ordinary life. That's too long. Unfortunately Johnathan and his team would be so wrapped up in the process of making the film they couldn't edit it down to the right length. It's far far too long.
The length of the film allowed a certain element of worthy self indulgent filmmaking to creep in and to my mind detract from what started out as powerful and understated.
But there is the nub of the problem for me. It goes nowhere slowly. In normalising the life of the commandant and his family we have to watch 1:30 mins of ordinary life. That's too long. Unfortunately Johnathan and his team would be so wrapped up in the process of making the film they couldn't edit it down to the right length. It's far far too long.
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