guidomaschio Reviews

The Haunting of Hill House (2018)

I usually don't like ghost stories, but this has something different

[7/10 · 29 October 2023]

As a premise I must say that I generally don't like ghost stories, so I approached Hill House without expecting much. Overall I enjoyed it, although there are some flaws. I'll start with what I didn't like:

a) the extreme slowness of many of the scenes and some dialogues, which at times are drawn out unnecessarily long

b) the repetitive mechanism of disturbing scenes which then turn out to be dreams with the protagonist who awakens with a start. This clichè is used too often

c) In addition to the scenes and some dialogues being too long, the narration of the overall story is also very diluted; a good 30% of each episode is dedicated to shots that slowly advance through the corridors of the house without anything happening. I would have appreciated a greater narrative synthesis

d) The beginning is very scattered and it is necessary to get to episode six to put together the threads of the story (however, this could paradoxically also be a plus point)

Coming instead to what I appreciated, I say:

a) the characterization of the various characters, truly excellent. The brothers and sisters each stand out with their own characteristics both as children and adults, and the same goes for the parents and the few other characters

b) The setting is both spooky and majestic

c) the photography with dark colors to the right point but also luminous when necessary

d) The tragic characters of Olivia and Nell are truly moving and perfectly delineated

e) Episode 5 "The Woman with the Bent Neck", tells Nell's story in a remarkable and moving way ; one of the best episodes of a TV series of all time

f) The figure of the father, almost evanescent at the beginning, is clarified at the end and takes on an unexpected depth.

Overall I therefore appreciated the series, although in my opinion it would have been more effective to concentrate the story in eight episodes.

Slasher: Soon Your Own Eyes Will See (2016) Season 1, Episode 8

A stupid ending

[3/10 · 16 September 2023]

What a bad ending!

When Sarah finds evidences and discovers who is the killer what does she do?

Does she call for help?

No... instead she grabs the huge knife and run to find the killer to kill him!

But there is a fight and she is injured and has to escape the killer.

Really dumb.

But wait... The murderer, despite having taken 30 cm of blade to the chest, continues to run and follow her as if nothing had happened. Then while she is struggling with him in a completely unreal way her reinforcements arrive and with the help of her husband she finally kills the culprit by stabbing him repeatedly.

Then the police arrive but no one investigates what happened and it all ends with tarallucci and wine. Finally the final cherry... Sarah and her husband leave and a small family arrives to buy their house that now is for sale. But their little cute daughter already shows that she is a serial killer in the making as she smugly breaks the neck of a poor kitten who was passing by. An ending which, after 7 serious episodes, leads to parody and involuntary comedy. A bad ending that greatly lowers the rating for this story.

Better Call Saul: Winner (2018) Season 4, Episode 10

Strong season closer but with flaws

[8/10 · 25 June 2022]

This episode, which closes season 4, contains a lot of good things, great plots and characters but also few flaws.

The good A) The opening scene with a flashback in which Chuck introduces Jimmy during his attorney investment ceremony. Then they go to celebrate and Chuck and Jimmy sing the Abba hit "The winner takes it all" at the Karaoke; Chuck then stops by his drunk brother's house to put him to bed and look after him. Knowing the turn that the relationship between the two brothers will take in the future, this sequence can only be imbued with nostalgia. The lyrics of the song, the brothers singing together, Jimmy always out of place, Chuck pushing him away and continuing alone singing very well, Chuck who then takes care of drunk Jimmy and puts him to bed (years later, it will be Jimmy to care after his brother), Chuck who then stops to sleep next to him, and then the two brothers who, while falling asleep, resume humming "The winner takes it all" while the zoom slowly takes us away from them. They are only a few minutes but very powerful, one of the high points of the whole series.

B) The angry outburst in which Jimmy tells the girl what he really thinks and hides from everyone, including Kim. Here we understand how deep is the hatred that Jimmy has for the world of the Chucks and Howards, guilty in his opinion of labeling, with an attitude of superiority, as irrecoverable anyone who has made a mistake even once, but pretending sympathy and forgiveness. Here for the first time Jimmy expresses his philosophy of life with very harsh and cynical words, and it is a revelation that leaves us speechless as it is so hard, ruthless and cynical.

C) The ending of the episode in which with an impromptu speech, different from the one agreed with Kim, Jimmy manages to fool the Commission which must rehabilitate him as a lawyer. In that speech he pretends to be moved by the thought of Chuck, thrilling the members of the Commission and - without realizing it - Kim too.

Kim's emotion does not last long, however, because Jimmy immediately reveals to her with boldness and malign satisfaction that he did lie, making even fun of whom had believed him. Furthermore, he declares that he wants to practice as a lawyer by abandoning the name Jimmy McGill (the last remaining link with Chuck) in favor of the more colorful Saul Goodman It's all good man. An excellent season finale that shows us the birth of Saul Goodman.

And now the bad 1) When Lalo - a real strong new character - goes to the Money Transfer office, in a matter of seconds he manages to slip into the false ceiling of the office, probably climbing onto the counter, effortlessly (???), without even making a sound (??? ) and without the employee noticing anything (???). A mission impossible undertaking that goes beyond the limits of the suspension of disbelief.

2) Werner Ziegler and his wife Could someone like Ziegler not have noticed who he was working for and what was at stake? All the security protocols, the surveillance, the immensity of money that Gus was surely paying him, and he decides to escape for a few days by secretly organizing his wife's trip from Germany to the USA? It does not make sense. He certainly could have found a way to bargain with Gus for a few days of absence or some alternative solution. The fact of not taking any serious precautions (i.e. Registering under a false name, hiding much further away, changing often vehicles) also clashes with the situation he was running away from and of which he must have been aware.

And what about his conversation with Lalo on the phone? Before Mike interrupts him, Werner gushes him a lot of "secret" informations without even making sure who he's talking to (and Werner had NEVER talked to Lalo before). This is also absurd.

Finally, his behavior after being captured by Mike is unreal.

He resigns himself to be killed without any attempt to resist.

And it is not even clear why Mike decides to execute Ziegler himself. Gus proposes to have someone else do it but Mike insists on being him. Because? Why does he choose to bear the burden of guilt for the murder of a guy who is after all "honest" and out of the loop Salamanca-Gus?

I find this storyline quite fragile and scarcely credible

Overall though it's a great season finale and deserves 8 out of 10 stars (and it would have been a 10 without the weaknesses listed)

Metal Lords (2022)

Game of Tones

[5/10 · 21 June 2022]

This movie has D. B. Weiss as writer and D. Benioff as Producer, that is the glorious masterminds (or inglorious if you think about the poor final season) behind the thrilling Game of Thrones TV series, partially based on the novels by George R. R. Martin.

And the music of the movie is from none other than Ramin Djawadi, that is the musician that wrote the beautiful main titles and soundtrack of all the 8 seasons of Game of Thrones.

Setting aside the eighth and final season (strongly criticized by almost all), Game of Thrones was definitely one of the most rewarding storytelling experience in the last few decades.

Unfortunately the same isn't true for this movie.

While the main idea is good the many storylines apparently go haphazardly.

We have no really interesting or likeable main character ( Hunter in particular is a real prick while Emily and Kevin are the most non-metal teenager I ever saw), we have interrupted plots (Game of Thrones season 8?) we have impossible timelines (Game of Thrones season 8 again?), we have a mess that mixes too much stories together and that goes nowhere. We can see the three-member band playing together only at the end of the movie, but the way that they get there is really absurd.

All in all it is not a really bad movie and I found it mildly entertaining, but metal and rock music aren't the real center of the stories and "Metal Lords" is not even remotely comparable to the great and lovely "School of rock".

Five stars out of ten.

The Girl in the Yellow Jumper (2020)

Penalized by inconsistencies

[5/10 · 16 June 2022]

Cinematography and editing are fine, actors are fine too .. BUT ... you have a policeman that find a stranger that tells a unbelievable story of torture and burial and killing and that is seriously wounded too ... and all he does is talk as if nothing happened?

No runs to the hospital, no runs to the Police station, no serious questioning about what did happen.

He looked more like a passerby than a policeman.

Then at the endig we have the policeman sister that tells the true story, but still we don't get the full story.

In his words we saw him strictly tied to a chair and tortured; was this reality or was this a lie? And if this was a lie, what did really happen and how did he escape from them?

Apart from this the movie wasn't a truly bad one...and the final twist of the silent passenger revealing as the serial killer is interesting ... but here too there are inconsistencies.

Eventually we see that the passenger's pouch is full of broken cigarettes. Should we believe that this "witness", so dangerous that he had to be handcuffed, had not even been searched?

Due to these inconsistencies I cannot give more than 5/10.

The Invisible Man (I) (2020)

Good direction and even better acting BUT......

[6/10 · 14 May 2022]

... well .. overall this movie was enjoable. Very good acting from Elizabeth Moss with scenography and direction above avarage.

Unfortunately there are things that don't add up.

First of all we are told about a abusive husband that is a genius and that invents a sort of technological invisibility cloak BUT it seems that when he wears it he becomes a super hero gaining super speed and super force, lifting and throwing people for meters with ease and other absurdities that are not coherent with the premise.

The protagonist knows what her husband is doing (he is stalking her using a technological suit that makes him iinvisible) but only at the end she uses a fire extinguisher to locate him ... basically even throwing flour into the air would have served its purpose and made the stalker visible .. .. even better ... using a spray paint can it would make it visible permanently So the Moss character is not well written because she is portraied as intelligent but she waits till the end of the movie to do the real effective things Then we a have a teeenager, daughter of a cop, that sleeps alone at home leaving the front door open at night (!!)

Aside from that the movie in enjoiable especially the beginning and the end are good with a couple of interesting twists.

The Weekend Away (2022)

Good b movie thriller ...until the very end

[6/10 · 6 March 2022]

All in all, after the cheesy start, the movie manteined my interest. The twists of the story were passable ed entertaining,

Unfortunately at the very end there is a twist that is not coherent with a previous revelation about the Police officer.

In fact we saw him murdering the victim on a videotape .but at the very end of the movie the murderer is another man ...🙄😒

Secuestro (2016)

This movie deserves an eight but I give it ten

[10/10 · 24 August 2020]

This movie deserves an eight but I give it ten because someone ridicously gave it an absurd and undeserved one. Hope this partially can balance an undeserved low rating.

The start is a bit slow but when the story kicks in the twists and turns that follows are intriguing. The acting from the main character is good and interesting, while the boy at times seems more autistic than deaf (but when you discover what was happening this can be realistic, although I did not like his acting). This is a hell of a thriller that will surprise you more than one time. The ending leaves you guessing what will she do, but it's not difficult if you think how much she cares for her boy. It's not perfect and here and there there are few inaccuracies but despite that this remains a hell of a thriller vastly superior to anything Hollywood puts out these days. A refreshing take about love, corruption,bullying, desperation and power.

Homeland: Long Time Coming (2014) Season 4, Episode 12

One of the worst episode ever. I'm almost done with Homeland

[2/10 · 24 February 2020]

In comparison to this the much criticized Games of Thrones finale is pure gold and a marvelous piece of art. This was the most boring episode I ever watched, that abruptly turns a spy drama (that was good til the second season, almost passable in the 3rd and awful in this fourth) into an unnecessary mother daughter attempted reconciliation.

The Carrie problems have become boring, the Ambassy assault was absolutely ridicoulous. The only interesting character in the whole season was Peter Quinn. Nor Saul nor Carrie managed to create minimal interest in their stories.

I hope the 5th season will be a lot different, but given the progressive worsening after season 2 I highly doubt it.

Manhunt (II) (2017–2020)

What were the screenwriter thinking?

[5/10 · 19 March 2019]

I saw only the first episode of this series but, despite the interesting subject and the good acting, I was disappointed by one big (for me) logic discrepancy .

In this starting episode we see FBI bosses asking the fresh awarded profiler Fitz for help. They need him to join them in the reborn Unabomber hunt. Fitz is a brilliant graduate and has a conscience so, after some reflections, he decides to leave again his wife and his children, and goes with them.

Now you would expect that the clever FBI heads were planning to benefit from this brlliant graduate intuition and cleverness to boost their investigation with a fresh point of view, right?

NOPE.

The only thing that they want is Fitz writing a detailed report confirming 100% their few old unfounded speculations about the misterious Unabomber alleged profile. ????????? "You have to play the music that we wrote", says one big FBI boss to Fitz.

So ..... why they dd contact him in the first place? This doesn't make any sense.

I found this to be a really glaring outpoint and I soon lost interest.

Evil Genius: The True Story of America's Most Diabolical Bank Heist (2018)

A disturbing story .. but I have some doubts

[7/10 · 2 March 2019]

I din't know this bad story and it left me partly shocked. Sure the most strange and disturbing (failed) bank robbery of all times.

The story covers many years and I have to give Kudos to the production for prsuing the story and its developments till the (maybe) end.

I have only two reservations about the conclusion:

1) The story ends telling us that the master mind of all this was Marjorie, but this is based only on the confessions of two of the four men involved in the main crime (the other two died before the discover of the facts), men that have all the interest to paint a scene of this colour. Surely she was present ma depicting her as the only and main force behind the planning, while there was his friend William Rothstein that often seems to have been in charge to do pseudo-clever mad machinations, seems a little far fetched to me.

2) Brian Wells during the robbery seems very calm, too calm for one that had a ticking bomb attached to his neck. At one point we are given the information that while exiting the bank he did a Charlot-like walk like he was kidding. Is not this strange? Maybe he didn't know that the bomb on his chest was real?

Radius (2017)

Surprisingly good movie

[8/10 · 18 February 2019]

I found it by chance and I was intrigued by its original story. A man wakes up after a car crash without memory and then he discovers to have a serious problem approaching people. This movie tells an original story about distance between human beings and about good and evil. It is not perfect but it keeps your attention from start to end and meanwhile it delivers interesting and provocative thoughts. I am surprised it didn't make it to some imporfant movie festival. Highly recommended.

All Good Things (2010)

If you want to know what really happened watch THE JINX by the same director

[5/10 · 22 January 2019]

The movie tells the story of David Marks, a business manager from a wealthy family, his strange psychological behaviour and his wife mysterious vanishing, not to mention two other murders. The acting is good but the story is really too slow and long.

It was 2010 and Jarecki named David Marcks the movie protagonist, but the real subject of the story was the millionaire Robert Durst. Jarecki changed the name to avoid lawsuits but he was soon to have a surprise: thanks to this movie Jarecki and Robert Durts came in contact and that was the starting point of the THE JINX: a documentary about "The life and the deaths of Robert Durst".

If you really want to know who Robert Durst/David Marcks is and what really happened go and watch the six episodes ot THE JINX, you will be surprised as much as Jarecki was in the closing minutes of his documentary.

Department Q: The Absent One (2014)

Despite its flaws it is worth seeing

[6/10 · 26 August 2017]

I give the movie 6 stars. Why only 6? Well, if it were not for some absurdities that requires far more than the suspension of disbelief I would have voted 8. The movie is gripping, the acting is good, the photography is dark and suggestive, the characters are troubled and interesting and the story is touching.

The detective pair, Carl the troubled one and Assad the more positive thinker, reminds me of other famous nordic investigative couples I saw in "Forbridelsen" (Sarah Lundt and her changing buddies) and in "Bron-Broen" (Saga and Martin). The chemistry between them is good and they are likable, even Carl with his nihilism.

I did not read the novel and I don't know if the screenwriter and the director were faithful or not to the written story, but in the movie there are points where I thought "Oh my ... how can it be possible?"

SPOILER: How can Kimmie, a mentally troubled homeless woman that has been living in a dirty cart for years, transform herself in few hours into a club vamp dressed in fashion, with a perfect makeup and a blond wig, with no sign of her chronic psychotic behavior? This is beyond credibility, even considering scenic fiction.

How can Kimmie overpower armed, strong and combat trained men fronting her? This happens four times: when ambushed in the cart, in her friend's house when she escapes Carl, in the detective apartment after the disco and last in the jail. Talk me about SuperHomelessWoman. Even this is beyond the credibility of scenic fiction.

I do not understand why they did not try to make the whole thing more realistic or at last more believable.

The story unfolds between past and present and I found some of the flashback scenes slightly disturbing as they show physical and psychological cruelties.

This is a sad story without a real happy ending, but worth seeing despite its flaws.

Enter Nowhere (2011)

Original movie with a surprising twist

[9/10 · 16 August 2017]

I was afraid to find that this was the usual scifi-horror movie where people get lost in the woods and take shelter into a disturbing cabin only to be assaulted by some psycho or monster. Luckily I was wrong. This is one of the most unpredictable movies I have seen. When "Enter nowhere" started to reveal its "secret" I was really surprised and moved at the same time. Good movie, good story and good ending. Highly recommended!!

Contratiempo (2011)

Extraordinary thriller

[8/10 · 15 August 2017]

It builds up a little slow, but when drama enters it's really intense. And when you think you know it all ... then the story twists! A real gem. From the start to finish you will be tense and spellbound and even moved by the realistic sequence of events. Fine actors plus engaging editing and direction. It deserves to be known.

Snowpiercer (2013)

A senseless train with some good visuals

[4/10 · 24 April 2016]

This train is senseless. Sure it is a metaphorical train, but there are so many pointless fights, killings and stupid actions by the characters that after a while I was annoyed by the whole thing.

Here and there you will find some good visuals (the train running in a frozen world, the upper classes luxury) and some creepy/fascinating characters (i.e. the "sweet" children teacher or the Tilda Swinton's one), but the prolonged fightings are really bad and boring, adding nothing to the story.

In order to rexist till the end you have to suspend twice your disbelief because here we have a train perpetually running around a frozen world for 17 years but ... we see people eating meat and eggs, we see even fishes and insects without explaining words (or images) about food or animal sources.

To me the most annoyng thing is the fact that on this train groups of people are suddenly starting to shot or beat the main characters often without apparent reasons.

A good idea with a bad realization.

Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

A breath of fresh air

[8/10 · 23 August 2015]

I expected a sci-fi movie ... and I got one, albeit a very different one.

This little gem is a sci-fi mystery story that talks about the ones that do not fit in. The characters are all lovable (even the initially annoying journalist that leads the trip to Ocean View) and all, everyone in his/her way, are weirdos or out of their path. The journalist tries to hide his sentimental vacuum acting like a teenager or a fool and thinking obsessively about sex. The two leads, Darius and Kenneth, are self admittedly out of place in this world. The young Indian nerd is stuck to his laptop and lives in a theoretical universe. Event the beautiful Liz, an old date of the journalist, after a failed relationship lives alone in a beautiful but secluded home, feeding her chickens and thinking she is too old to start a new romance.

The movie is always interesting and original and will keep you guessing about Kenneth sanity until the last frame. 8 out of 10.

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

Nice girls, very bad movie

[2/10 · 27 June 2015]

It tries to start like the usual teen slasher movie, but since the start I felt something not good. In fact before we get to know the "usual teens" that are leaving for the cabin in the woods, we are introduced to two guys dressed in white overalls chatting in a factory rest room, in front of a coffee machine. It seems that they are engineers or some technical staff members. Minutes later we are informed that these tech staffers are part of a big nameless firm or governmental agency, in competitions with other similar agencies in other parts of the world, in order to conduct a sort of an horror and deadly Truman Show having the unaware teens as main characters.

Since the motivation for this "game" with human sacrifices is to appease some divinities, preventing them from destroying earth, and due to the awful way the movie depicts the characters (teens and "controllers" alike) from there on I struggled to keep watching this boring mess of a story.

Two out of ten.

Django Unchained (2012)

Seeing the ratings I hoped it was a better movie

[3/10 · 13 June 2015]

I tried to like this movie but I didn't.

The "story" is really weak, only a pretext to show pointless violence that someone finds funny (not me).

Waltz was OK but I didn't like his character. Foxx character on the other side is really awful. The way he behaves is really annoying and the fact that he becomes a skilled gunman in one lesson only is really unbelievable.

The only actor that stands up is Di Caprio, but the violence he enjoys is similar to that of far fetched rated-18 horror comics; maybe teenagers finds that entertaining.

I expected a surprising movie I found a boring and pointless one.

Open Water 2: Adrift (2006)

A fake sequel

[6/10 · 23 July 2008]

Open water 2 has nothing to do with Open Water, apart the fact that both depict a sea drama. The first Open Water was a good independent movie, a real labor of love, on the contrary this is a much more budgeted movie and, in my opinion, a wasted occasion.

The characters of the movie act really stupidly, so when the drama of the first Open Water starts in a believable way (and real fact based) in this fake sequel the drama starts from a moronic stupid action.

All is (almost) fine when suddenly, without a reason, the moron of the story jumps out of the ship not caring for the psychological conditions of Amy, not caring for the ship security rule and not caring for a little baby that is left alone in the bed.

A moron like this must be sentenced to death.

Then the characters, instead of thinking every second a way to get out from their unpleasant condition, let the time go, trying only 2 or 3 ways to overcome the slippery ship sides. I cannot believe that 6 people can be so limited in their tryouts when their lives are at risk ... in fact when at the end Dan finds a way out all you can think of is: why no one tried that way before when with 6 people alive, the climbing could have been easier to do? Amy is a beautiful and lovable girl, but the story isn't good as it could have been. Some good shots and a lot of useless scenes of passive and dumb people not trying to save their lives.

Saw III (2006)

Not my cup of tea

[5/10 · 19 February 2008]

Despite a promising first episode the Saw saga is becoming a nonsense.

We have a maniac moribund with a mental instable assistant that are capable of setting traps that in a real world will require an army to be built. They have all they need, they are capable to forge complicated mechanisms and to prepare traps that requires entire buildings to be set up(LOL). More than this they are capable to kidnap people even in their own houses, trespassing alarms and keys and having even the time to set up hidden cameras and circuits into their victims rooms.

Normally when horror movies have to force down our throats unbelievable facts they rely on supernatural or sci-fi; so we have demons, ghosts, magic or mutant-monsters and so on. On the contrary the Saw saga tries hard to be logical without succeeding.

It's more believable to see evil ghosts and mutant-monsters than one single horrid trial set up by this silly omnipotent jigsaw.

Five stars because there are some visual interesting inventions, but the screenplay is really awful. It tries to build a logical puzzle but all we get is a million holes cheese.

Heartless (I) (2005 TV Movie)

Half noir and half cheese

[3/10 · 12 September 2007]

I was really surprised to see Melanie Griffith into this very modest flick. Usually she is a great actress and a very seductive woman, but here the way she portrays the bad lawyer doesn't work. But I don't blame her too much because the plot is ridiculous and the plot holes are bigger than Mount Everest.

I.e. when Mr. Vierra (the rich Griffith lover) is killed no one investigates her only because at the murdering hour she was at home with her assistant. But the man was murdered with a heavy stick that smashed his head: so why does everyone only consider the hypothesis that she performed the assassination with her own hands? Since the start everyone knows that the woman is a manipulator, so the first logical thing to do was to suspect her as the crime sender. There was even a witness that saw an angry Mr Vierra expelling Mrs. Wells out of his office, causing her to seriously threaten him. But no one cares; it seems that because she was at home she could not be related in any ways to the murdering of the man that dumped her only days before.

Dumb.

Subsequently she tries to be recognized as the murdered rich man's wife in order to get his inheritance ... and still the police isn't interested to investigate her involvement with the murder.

Dumber.

The characters behavior isn't believable, the plot leads nowhere, Melanie Griffith - that shows occasionally some of her seductive side - mostly goes through the scenes like a sleepwalker and her various criminal connections are so evident that it's not believable that no one tries to incriminate her for the killings.

3 out of 10 - Avoid it.

Road Rage (1999 TV Movie)

No one cares for the unlucky guy

[5/10 · 3 September 2007]

This movie is below average, no doubt. I rented this DVD and it was a bit of a let down. But I must say that the "villain" character is very well acted by Jere Burns. In fact until 3/4 of the movie (when a murder occurs) I partially sided for him. Think for a while: the guy's wife and daughter - the ones he loved - were killed in a car accident. A tragedy like THAT can really make yourself mad. So why the guy wasn't cured or get assisted after that tragedy? To me is unbelievable that no one cared for the guy after his big personal drama.

Had anybody cared maybe he could have stopped his descent into madness, but no one did.

So for me it was difficult to see Burns as the real "villain" of the story. Sure when the first murder takes place he shifted immediately in the "bad guy" category, but until that point I felt some sympathy for him and his tragedy. Kudos to Jere Burns that did his part very well, showing the complexities of the character.

Apart Burns acting and few thrilling sequences (i.e. when "Burns" character pretends to be a customer and visits the house's cellar trying to draw "Yasmine Bleeth" character down) the movie is really dumb (and unfair), 'coz there are too much far-fetched situations.

Four Minutes (2006)

An exciting surprise

[8/10 · 2 September 2007]

If you love music and freedom you must see this! The movie is about a difficult relationship between a young inmate girl and the old piano teacher of the prison. The relationship isn't easy: by one side we have the unbreakable, rebellious, outrageous however talented young girl while on the other we have the old hard shelled teacher. But despite their differences the two woman are similarly stubborn and stiff in their points of view.

There are many minor twists in the story, but the real focus is on the two women nature and on "state of guilt/innocence" and "justice/injustice" dicothomies. At one point we are suggested that Jenny - unsettled due to her father's sexual harassment when she was a teenager - isn't really responsible for the crime she was incarcerated for, and that she confessed the crime only because of her self-destructive behaviour and because a man fooled her.

On the contrary Traude (the old teacher) remembers (only for us movie spectators) a WWII episode when she worked as a nurse in a nazi hospital, where to save herself she repudiated her lesbian lover (her only love in life)-sentenced to death because communist.

So both the self-controlled teacher and the explosive girl have deep emotional scars, where guilt, innocence, regret, pride and love mix together.

The ending is really powerful, although you will be left wondering about the two women fate. But this movie is worth viewing even for that ending only.

Beware, because the last 4 minutes are an astounding musical surprise; and given the particular context of that very strange performance, you will long remember it with strong emotion.