Sunny Kim The movie provides a safety of anonymity over its characters by never giving away the location of the setting, an isolated dream taking place beyond the pale of society with its own mechanism, but sometimes a lucid dream gives life to what is kept in the deep hollows of the collective consciousness.Alexander, a young boy of sensibility, lives among a community of children and women overseen by just one man, Gregori. The film documents the manipulation that takes place as the group exist to function for a cause of its own and juxtaposes the fanaticism, of a controlled and ultimately an abusive nature, with the open wonder of the innocence of childhood.The mechanisms of Oedipal crisis is at work and Alexander opens his eyes to the world around him, made significant with the arrival of a baby brother. However, the much debated theme, commonly based on the Freudian concept of repressed sexuality, makes its transition much quicker to the stages of puberty and adulthood as the boy begins to realize his actions must now carry the consequences of social responsibility, or the lack thereof. The film ends abruptly to prevent something really serious from happening. Instead, it leaves us on a poignant note of a scene, reminding us of Ezekiel 25:17, with boy Alexander emanating a plea for deliverance through his being as he stares down the only responsible man in his eyes.Dream-like, painstaking and most certainly a unique film experience that's put the young director on my radar.

jimbo-53-186511 Rather than use my own plot summary I think it would be easier to evaluate this film using IMDb's own plot summary which is as follows;"Alexander, a boy who has been raised in a sequestered commune, finds that his increasing unwillingness to fall in line puts him on a collision course with Gregori, the society's charismatic and domineering leader" Perhaps the problem for me with this film lay with my expectations of it and, given its premise, I expected a film that was about a brutal man and his tyrannical regime coupled with a young boy trying to overthrow his regime at every opportunity. Although there are certain moments in this film where both elements exist neither element is really given the focus required to make it a particularly good story or an involving experience. The film is supposed to be about Alexander trying to overthrow Gregori's regime, but examples of him trying to do this are few and far between and I also felt his reasons for wishing to do so were rather flimsy. It didn't really help that I never really saw Gregori as a tyrant either (I felt he was more misguided than anything) and this is another reason that I became drawn away from the film as the characters and their actions never really felt believable.Other more noticeable issues with the film lie with the pacing which is slow and tedious. There are long stretches of the film where nothing seems to happen making the film feel quite boring most of the time. I also felt that the film was unfocused and had no central narrative - Alexander flits between being an assassin and an objector with very little hanging these story arcs together. Although the film uses these 2 aspects to tell Alexander's story neither of the story arcs are developed particularly well making the whole film feel woefully and frustratingly undercooked.The only real positive about this film was Vincent Cassel who can almost make anything watchable and I also thought the kid who played Alexander did a solid job too. However, with weak material, unfocused plotting, and pretentious artsy direction Partisan was always destined to fail.

eddie_baggins For all intents and purposes Partisan neither feels like, looks like or acts like an Australian film despite it very much so being one. It's a rare thing for an Australian film to achieve that feat of not actually feeling Australian and while it's hard to know whether in the case of Ariel film here if this is a good thing, it's not hard for one to feel that Partisan is a sadly frustrating experience to witness.Filmed in a dark, gloomy and atmospheric fashion by first time feature film director Ariel Kleiman, Partisan looks the part and while it's never stated where or at what time this film takes place it has an almost 1984 feel to proceedings that gives it a universal feel that this is a tale that could be happening anywhere in our great big world. The troubling thing about Partisan is that this non-disclosure of where the film is taking place is just one of many things that it never lets the audience into.Kleiman's whole film feels eerie, almost an Oliver Twist gone bad type feel as Vincent Cassel's Gregori looks over and trains his not so merry band of children to go about some pretty confronting missions, but Partisan never cares to absolutely let us into its mindset, although it's clear Gregori is some type of saviour to women in need.You keep watching in hope of finding out more behind the whole thing but sadly the answers are never forthcoming, which is a shame as young actor Jeremy Chabriel handles himself well despite his character of Alexander not being an overly endearing one and Vincent Cassel (a last minute replacement of Oscar Isaac) acquits himself well. Kleiman also shows enough to suggest his future endeavors could be quite the treat and the films soundtrack by Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never) is easily one of the year's best.It's all fine and well to have your film remain shrouded in some mystery but unfortunately for Partisan there's just too much mystery and not enough answers and the film suffers emotionally for it and fails to engage in the way in which it so easily could've. A unique Australian backed effort with moments of genuine greatness, Partisan has wins but far far too many losses to compensate for.2 upside-down chickens out of 5

subxerogravity I'm a fan of the actor Vincent Cassel so that was enough to get me to go see the movie. He plays a cult-like leader of a small hidden society made up of woman and children in a dystopian future, when his warp Mister Rodgers charms is not working on one of the boys it threatens to untangle what he created. Past this, I could not tell you what the movie was about. Though they gave some clues of what cause whatever apocalypse they were living in, most of what's going on is left to the imagination.So the movie relies on the abilities of Cassel and his interaction with his strange tribe of children. It was noteworthy to see the emotional conflict bouncing back and forth with Cassel to the rest of the cast. Especially, the lead boy who basically is realizing that the life these people are leading is wrong and not for him, and it's setting him aside from his mother. It can be very distracting from the fact that the movie has a plot I don't fully understand. But I did like it.