Vaterland

Reviewed by: Tereza Schneiderova

This is a movie highlights a passion for hunting and can be summarized in three sentences. There is no serious plot. Everything seems foggy and mysterious yet the real mystery is never brought to light in the end. It’s like the film tries to gives you hope that something exciting will happen. It never does.

The film is presented to the audience as a thriller with bits of comedy. I didn’t find either of those. Points should be given to the cinematography and musical score however – if it weren’t for these, the film would be total waste of time.

The whole film takes place at an old hunting castle. The castle was inherited by the four main characters from their grandfather. They meet there and hunt, two of the men bring their wives. There is an old butler supposedly takes care of the building but he doesn’t do such a great job, the building is devastated, full of spider-webs and flies, and in other words, the whole scene is disgusting. All of the men stick together and plan a big journey for hunting a special kind of animal. They get all the equipment ready and set off to the mountains. A real surprise waits for the men and the audience, but be prepared…it seemed a bit stupid to me. After the hunt nothing really interesting happens. There is a mystery hidden in the house which isn’t solved in any astonishing way. None of the men want to bother keeping up the house so after a while they all decide to leave and forget about it.

Different people might have different opinions. But this film was too much for me. I think this film should have only been made for TV. It’s up to you if you want to give it a chance, but I would wait for better films to come to the theater. And I’ll let you know when they do.

Director: David Jarab

Staring: Karel Roden, Petr Forman, Frantisek Rehak, Vasil Fridrich, Dana Polakova,Marek Daniel, Roman Zach, Jose Calvalho Pacheco de Figueiredo, Julio Martin da Fonesca, Oyunchimeg Adiya.

Camera: Marek Jicha

Script: David Jarab