Wellenstock I found "The Cut" to be quite an amazing film. The story is epic almost biblical and unforgettable. Through the horrors of the Armenian genocide a few acts of humanity make all the difference. It's probably not the best film for the flapjack eating simpleton but if you can handle subtitles, respect other cultures and appreciate profound human experience, pick this one up. It certainly beats the prepackaged, formula, market tested, predictable hogwash vomited out of Hollywood year after year.

runamokprods I'm a little confused by the cool critical reception this received on release in the U.S.. Yes, it's uneven at times, and it's slightly distanced emotionally for an epic historical melodrama about one of the terrible genocides of the 20th century. Yes, it occasionally traffics in clichés, and there are some clunky lines and awkward moments of dubbing.But that is more than offset by spectacular photography, tremendously affecting scenes of horror, loss, sadness, hope, anachronistic but extremely effective music, and an intelligent attempt to deal with not only the Armenian genocide, but what it means to be a refugee, the nature of silence, the complexity of morality in a morally confusing world, and many other themes that raise it above most of the Hollywood historical melodramas we see, including many that win Oscars and are great successes (many of which also traffic in clichés and have some awkward dialogue). If it's not quite as great as the far more personal and quirky films that are the very best of Akin's work; Head-On, The Edge of Heaven, Crossing the Bridge , it's still a thoughtful and intelligent film by one of the most interesting film-makers in the world today.It tells the story of an Armenian who is forced to leave his family and perform slave labor after the Ottoman Empire enters the first world war, and follows him into ever worse layers of personal hell. Rather than trying to capture the scope of the genocide all around him, for a long while we get only hints and glimpses of the horrible larger truth, seeing only those things our character does. It's an intimate experience of genocide. The second act of the film, once the war is over, is our hero's long and winding journey to try and find what might be left of his family. Not the first time such a subject has been dealt with on film, but this does it with an off-beat and almost dreamlike tone, and a meditative pace. I found myself thinking of filmmakers like Lisandro Alonso as much as Steven Spielberg. It's a strong and worthwhile cross between art-house and old school epic melodrama. If you are willing to forgive the occasional lapse, it's very worth seeing.A note of caution: The German blu-ray, while great looking, does not have English subtitles. The film is largely, but not completely in English (English stands in for Armenian), but some crucial scenes are in Turkish or Arabic, with no translations offered - a real problem. On the other hand, the US DVD has the film mostly dubbed into Armenian (which Akin approves of), and completely subtitled in English, which, strangely was more effective in some ways than the English track (and I usually HATE dubbing). But in this case many of the supporting actors clearly are not native English speakers, and the performances get very stiff and off-putting for it at times. When I saw the film a second time, in the Armenian dub with all English subtitles, it actually helped a lot of those performances flow better, and I found the film a more affecting experience overall. However, I wish there was a release that offered both the original English track with subtitles for all other languages (which doesn't seem to exist), AND the Armenian dubbed track with English titles, as on the US DVD. And while I'm at it, I'd like all that on a blu-ray, since this is a beautifully shot film. Sigh...

Horst in Translation ([email protected]) Usually when you hear there is a new World War movie coming out, you can be fairly certain that the second one is in the center of the film. Faith Akin's newest film, however takes place roughly 100 years ago during World War II. The political climate is merely the setting. We do not really see battle scenes where the film takes place, namely in Turkey. Tahar Rahim plays a Georgian living there and we get to witness his fight for survival and finally the search for his two daughters. As the cut mentioned in the film's title refers to his vocal chords, he is silent for pretty much the whole movie apart from the very beginning. Good performance by Rahim.As a whole, I have to say I was not as emotionally involved as I would have liked. However, if you can't deal with violence in movies, you really should not watch this one as it is packed with it from start to finish: lots of dying scenes, several (attempted) rape scenes, mass executions, genocide, assisted suicide and abductions. Most of it is pretty graphic as well. The first half is basically all about Rahim's characters fight for survival and the (good and bad) people he meets during his struggles, while the second half could almost be described as a road movie. We get to see Turkey, Cuba, several locations in the United States and more. The crane scene mentioned in the title of my review is a metaphor I enjoyed a lot as it applies not only to the central character, but also to his two daughters.The ending was rough and uplifting at the same time. There were a couple other situations where it could have ended, like when he gets beaten up by his coworkers and they ask if he is dead, but then again it obviously would have been a totally negative ending, which I don't mind, however. Sometimes that's how it goes. Surviving the genocide and getting beaten to death by a couple racist rednecks. Then again, the real ending was not entirely positive either, so I can live with that. Just not a fan of forced happy endings.The cast is really not famous at all. The only two people I knew apart from Rahim were Moritz Bleibtreu (who worked a lot with Akin in the past) in a one-scene performance and Trine Dyrholm in a slightly bigger role. I cannot say I have been wowed by this movie, but still I'd recommend watching it. The topic is very specific and you'll have a hard time finding another movie about it I guess. I found it pretty interesting to watch for the central character's fate, but also for all the political backgrounds and to see what life was like 100 years earlier.

Geoffrey Haig This film tackles a topic of huge dramatic potential, and it is certainly a bold move for a director with Turkish roots to take this task on, given the pathological aversion of the Turkish authorities to any reference to the Armenian genocide. Unfortunately, in my view the film fails almost entirely as a film, both technically and in terms of character development/dialog. Furthermore, it avoids really facing the issue of the genocide itself, the historical background and the sheer scale of the killings. The genocide involved hundreds of thousands of people; the film contains scenes in the desert involving a tiny group of Armenian men haplessly shifting a few rocks backwards and forwards, guarded by a few Ottoman troops - the whole scene works more like a cheaply-produced pantomime set; to portray the scale of the actual events you really need epic cinematography, which apparently the budget just wasn't up to. Then there is the totally one-dimensional plot, a series of fairly arbitrary stages on a journey, with no obvious motivations or connections for choice of scenes (why Cuba, Minneapolis ...?), no development of real relationships between any of the characters, and a final denouement that can only be termed anti-climactic. We also find numerous clichés - the barbaric Kurds (rapists), the wily Bedouin (keeping helpless Christian women captive), the saintly soap-maker - who, despite being the owner of a sizable factory, still wanders around the desert alone with his donkey and his cart, the happy Armenian tradesman and his family torn apart by the genocide etc etc. The main blessing of the film for me was that the lead character loses his voice early on in the film (another totally implausible twist of the plot), which spares us yet more of the generally flat dialogs.