Monkeywess This is an astonishing documentary that will wring your heart while it bends your mind

ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Orla Zuniga It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

paduxx HUGE SPOILER IN THIS REVIEW. But, you would surely be better off for reading it.Other reviews have covered most of the general aspects, but, to avoid a HUGE spoiler, have seemingly soft pedaled on the ending.Perhaps the story on which this movie is supposed to be based is to blame, but while much of the movie is reasonably classily made, the ending is TOO stupid and ridiculous for words. Such an ending does NOT deserve such good story telling capability in the movie crew or the acting talents of the actors. How stupid do the film makers expect the viewers to be to accept that the protagonist can kill some one, skin their face and wear it as a mask to pass off as the victim and worse expect further stupidity in believing that the murderer can, with such, skinned mask, get intimate with the victim's lover who will get on full gusto with the intimacy with NO clue for several movie minutes!!!Full fault on the director for choosing to film this story bereft of sanity or even plausibility.

eatfirst In an unspecified land of tundra and ice, a mother and daughter, estranged from their tribes-people, alone and on the run from a brutal hired army, are struggling to survive in this harsh, desolate landscape. Into their lives walks an escaped press-ganged soldier, barely alive, and a tragic chain of events is set in motion.London born film-maker Asif Kapadia knows how to capture isolation. He finds it in the sombre monochrome landscapes of this Arctic tale, and equally in the eyes of his lead actress, Michelle Yeoh. She plays Saiva, a woman who has borne a curse since birth foretelling that she will bring misfortune upon anyone who gets close to her. Forced out of her tribe, she lives nomadically, with only her grown-up daughter for company. Theirs is a never ending routine of hand-to-mouth survival and constant relocation to ever more lonely shores. The films' establishing shots of expansive ice flows are set to a soundtrack of groaning, creaking tension and cracks beneath the surface. Once Sean Bean's on- the-run Soldier arrives to upset the balance of their simple existence, it soon becomes apparent that Saiva shares much in common with the ice pack surrounding her.So effectively does Asif conjure the quiet, contemplative mood and pace of much Scandinavian or Russian cinema that it comes as quite a shock when the main trio of characters open their mouths (which they do only rarely) and talk in English. The point is that it does not matter what language they speak, as the location and even the precise period of this story is kept deliberately vague. Just as it matters not what strange language it is that the other invading soldiers speak to themselves, only that it is not familiar. They are the aliens here.For much of its short running time not a lot seems to be happening here, but there is not a wasted moment or unnecessary scene. Judicious use of flashbacks provide insight into the moments that have forged Saiva's tough and ruthless survival instincts. While in the present, much is communicated in silence by the glances of desire and jealousy that the trio exchange. Sean Bean comfortably inhabits the role of decent but morally weak man, but it's Michelle Yeoh's steely, haunted central performance that grabs and pulls you in. Like some Merchant-Ivory period drama stripped of all its airs and finery, we are in a world of suppressed emotions and mounting tensions. The palpable sense that something has to give is the overriding drive towards the startling climax.

hmsgroop We are all used to the Ancient Greek tragedies like "Oedipus", the main idea of which is the inevitability of fate, and the main moral lesson is to meet this destiny looking it boldly in the eye and stoically doing what one still feels morally right to do. So here we've a got an inuit variation of the theme – Saiva is doomed at the moment she was born. The shaman proclaims she will bring only death and disaster to everyone she comes in contact with. Raised in isolation from people, Saiva survives and defies fate. She tries to love (though the love affair ends tragically not of her own fault), she tries to raise another doomed child though not her own, she saves a man from freezing to death. The man's name is Loki, and, like his Norse namesake, a trickster he turns out to be. When the everyday routine crumbles around Saiva, she desperately longs to change her fate, to exchange it with another person. She actually tries on Anja's skin and life. To no avail. Fate cannot be fooled. Saiva is cursed and alone, demons of anger, jealousy, remorse eating her heart up, the trickster is gone never to return. The stranger will freeze to death, as he was destined to, Anja dead, the way she was meant to be about 20 years ago. Life resumes its unchangeable course, one can almost hear the icy cold, cruel laugh of the gods. Great camera work. The North as shown in the film is truly majestic and absolutely indifferent to the life of people. Eternal, cruel, beautiful, a true mystery. On the whole, I would say it's an underestimated film. A really good story, spoiled only by the Hollywood curse of filling "bad Russians" in every hole. It's inconceivable how Russian soldiers should be wearing Nazi German uniform and tabs. Or are bad Russians a must to sell a film in the US?

ironman4862-1 I really didn't understand the purpose of making this film. I think of myself as a pretty good film critic and most films I like the masses enjoy as well. This film was slow and quiet and I guess the climax was the shock value at the end. Shocking yes, but valued no. I was dissapionted and felt cheated, because there was no valid reason for her to kill someone she saved from death and raised like her own child. If she was a psycho path and the director gave us glempses of that then maybe it would have made sense. I mean, things should make some sense and what she did made none. I'm not one who needs movies wrapped up in a cute bow at the end so I leave happy, but cmon maaaan, this was disturbingly stupid and anyone who enjoyed this film must like contrived controversy. Well, to each his own, but this one could have stayed on the shelf.