BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

PlatinumRead Just so...so bad

Borgarkeri A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Coventry I'm not entirely sure why several people recommended this film to me… I guess that everyone still assumes that an art-house horror flick is automatically a must see in case it a) got made in a Spanish speaking country – preferably Mexico, b) played at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival and c) quickly received an American remake. Well, newsflash, "We Are What We Are" most certainly isn't a must-see. Quite the contrary, in fact, this is an incredibly dull film with loathsome characters, implausible and outdated plot elements and severe pacing issues. This irritating hybrid between uninspired cannibal flick and pretentious coming-of-age story starts out fairly promising, with the rather disturbing death of a seemingly sick and perverted man in front of a shopping mall. He turns out to be the patriarch of a cannibalistic family and the sole provider of human bodies on their diner table. It's now up to the oldest son Alfredo to go out hunting, and together with his psychopathic younger brother Julian he brings home a prostitute, much against the will of their mentally unstable mother. After this incident all family members go hunting for their own victims, but they are closely followed by a determined police detective. "We Are What We Are" is unimaginably slow-paced and boring, but most of all terribly pretentious. For example, the screenplay never talks about cannibalism but about "performing the ritual". You can tell that some of the plot evolutions were intended to be shocking and controversial, but they actually aren't taboos anymore since a very long time, like gay adolescents or vigilante prostitutes. The filming style is exaggeratedly melodramatic, with colorless set-pieces and a deeply unpleasant ambiance. I assume that the young and overly ambitious writer/director Jorge Michel Grau also deliberately stuffed his film with social criticism about the poverty and hopelessness in certain big Mexican cities, but first he should try to pen down better scripts before getting politically engaged...

Claudio Carvalho In Mexico, the patriarch (Humberto Yáñez) of a family of cannibals dies in a shopping mall. He is a watchmaker that supports his family and his sons Alfredo (Francisco Barreiro) and Julián (Alan Chávez) go to the street market to work in his booth. However the manager evicts them from the market since their father owes three-week rental to her. When they return home, their sister Sabina (Paulina Gaitan) informs that their father has died in the mall. While the three siblings discuss who will be the family provider for their rituals, their mother Patricia (Carmen Beato) locks herself in a room. Alfredo and Julián initially assume the responsibility but they are clumsy and soon two corrupt police detectives track them down. "Somos lo que hay" is an unpleasant Mexican low-budget movie with displeasing characters. A couple of days ago, I saw the good 2013 remake and I was curious to see the original feature. I found it very disappointing, with nasty characters and situations. Further, it is difficulty to say if the author of this horror movie wishes to show social problems in Mexico (poverty, prostitution, corrupt police etc.), drama or whatever. My vote is four.Title (Brazil): Not Available on Blu-Ray or DVD

standardbearer This movie had a terrific premise: The father of an isolated, poor family dies, so the family tradition is passed down to the children: the tradition of consuming human flesh!I was expecting either a very campy horror flick, or a balls to the wall docu-drama, but all-in-all, a powerful movie.I'm pretty objective about recent movies, so I'm not a wee bit personal, when I'm saying that this movie not just ignored all my expectations, but gave absolutely nothing instead. Let's get one thing out of the way: the acting was terrific. Great casting choices, great performances. I admit that. But to what end?There is so much wrong with this movie, it's easier to tell what was right. Besides the acting, the music was also pretty moving. It was terrible in this movie, but on it's own, it was pretty good music. ... Now for the bad parts: literally, everything else. The plot. So we have this family, with a fiendish agenda. Why are they determined to eat people? did they really eat them before? If so, why do they want to stop now? What do they want to accomplish with cannibalism? What are their reasons? We never get to know.The personal stories. What do the 3 kids want? Is Alfredo really gay? What's his history with his parents? And Julian? What drives Sabina? And the mother? Why does she think they should not eat prostitutes but something else, and why does she hates her children? Why does she do all the things she does in the movie? There's no logic in her motives. The only two characters who were remotely interesting and entertaining (two workers at the local morgue), had about 5 minutes of screen time only.The gore. Alright. This is supposed to be a cannibal movie. It's okay to have no gore, if we have a strong story, or the movie takes a turn, and just starts to show the story from a different perspective. Which it doesn't. Also, no consumption of human flesh is shown. There are some very violent scenes, but since there is no one to care about in this movie, they are absolutely weightless. The cinematography. Good god. There were some pretty nifty camera movements, and they didn't even come off as gimmicky, self-righteous idiotism. Respect for that. Too bad, the lighting just destroyed all of the shots. Seriously, I don't think I ever seen a movie as badly lighted as this one. It wasn't just dark, most times it was pitch black, with a very short depth of field. It was confusing to say the least, and stupid to be fair.The direction. What were you thinking? No, that is not just a theatrical question. I'd like to know what was the aim of this movie? What were the reasons behind it? In this movie, We know nothing, we see nothing, and we care about no one. I rarely say this, but probably this was the most eventless 90 minutes of my life.

poe426 I think it was Sawney Bean who once said that... At any rate, WE ARE WHAT WE ARE is what it is. It's beautifully crafted, for one thing, and the minimal music is very creepy, indeed (the score is almost subliminal). The performances all around are excellent; the fact that the movie doesn't just retread ground gone over before in the all-too-familiar fashion is another big plus. (By contrast, RAVENOUS, which boasted one of the creepiest trailers ever, devolved into a ridiculous fantasy.) The story twists, from the beginning, are out of left field (but well in keeping with what's happening, and dramatic turns one and all), which keeps one guessing. While I'm no big fan of Alfred Packer or Liver-eatin' Johnson or Albert Fish or any of the others whose axploits have been fodder for filmmakers over the years, I must admit that WE ARE WHAT WE ARE is a fine piece of work.