The Wall (2012)

Touches You

The Worst Film Ever

Beautiful, moving film.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This is a beautiful rendition of the "Last Woman" themed novel of the same name by Marlen Haushofer. Most of the most profound moments of the narrator's reflection are used here verbatim as voice-overs. The parts omitted make sense for timing reasons (though definitely missed - especially Tiger). The cinematography and scenery are breathtaking, and Gedeck does a phenomenal job bringing this character and all the emotions to life. Highly recommend reading the novel first - it's a short, and powerful quick read - then watching the movie.

The premise behind THE WALL, a German art-house movie, is a familiar one: an invisible barrier suddenly appears, trapping a woman (and her dog) in a rural valley, where she must learn to fend for herself against the elements and the dangers her new-found situation brings. This idea is nothing new, having been explored - at length - in Stephen King's UNDER THE DOME, and I actually explored it myself in a high school horror story I wrote back in the 1990s.Unfortunately the execution of THE WALL turns out to be lacking, failing to effectively exploit the narrative scenarios that such a barrier would give rise to. Don't get me wrong, there are some chilling and effective scenes here, but 90% of the film seems to consist of the protagonist moping around and feeling sorry for herself.A ponderous, often monotonous, narration does little to help things. You can't fault the acting here, and the cinematography is the best thing in it, really bringing out the isolation of the rural valley setting. But the character is uninteresting and the bizarre time frame, which jumps all over the place as the film progresses, is just confusing. Not so much I AM LEGEND as I AM DULL AND NOT AS GOOD AS I THINK I AM.

I have not read the book nor read about the movie before watching it.Almost everything about this movie is brilliant - location story cinematography acting editing - should have belonged in my top list of favorites. It is not. Even with the thematic similarities with Cast Away (7.7), Life of Pi (8.1) and elements from The Mist (7.2 - looking inwards at the face of a larger unknown), this premise and the story works beautifully. Stunning visual compositions and the soulful performance absolutely stand out.What positively do not work are the monologues and the music. 'The wind was howling and the house was creaking' is something that needs to be written in a book – to say the same thing in the movie is an annoying intrusion while the audience is riveted with the visuals, sound and performance. There is at least 50% excessive pointless monologue in the movie – anybody heard of the use of silence? The movie is meant to be philosophical and inward looking. Lingering beautiful shots will be totally understood by the audience who are willing to invest in a movie like this. Why impose a monologue when it is only going to kill the impact of the moment? See Cast Away for comparison – for almost one hour in the movie there is no music no monologues – just the background sounds.The "music" is unsuitable and almost completely not required. It is disappointing that the director who could write such screenplay, extract such magnificent visuals and riveting performance has no taste in music.Perhaps with 15 less minutes and 50% less monologues, it could have made it to top ranks instead of the 6.7 it currently is.

Not to be confused with the Pink Floyd film, the Wall is a poetic and beautifully shot film about isolation and nature. The basic premise is that a woman suddenly discovers that she is surrounded by an invisible wall. The film shows how the woman deals with her situation through a diary that she keeps, documenting the events of this unfortunate event.It is part survival film and part existential allegory with a dash of psychological horror.The film does have a slow pace that would probably be a bore for the masses, but I enjoyed its meditative pace that allows you to feel the gravity of the situation at hand and marvel at the beauty of nature (which is also a heavy theme in this film).10/10 for originality and beauty