This film confirms my long-held suspicion that their films are the best. They may not make as much money as US films but at least they offer something of substance. Clearly, this is not a feel-good movie. And no, it's not about beautiful people living ostentatiously in palatial houses and wearing designer colthes. It's about the real life of two normal people and, although that might not appear to be a recipe for a particularly fascinating film, I was enthralled. It is so rare nowadays to see a films that conveys emotions and human relationships so powerfully and I have no hesitation in putting this film in my short list of the best I've seen in recent years.
In detail, two girls whose lives are drifting nowhere are staying rent-free in the flat of a family all but one of whom have been killed in a car accident. One of the girls has a family background that we never learn more about but which is clearly unhappy. She pins her hopes on a rich boyfriend whose father owns the nightclub they frequent. The other girl is more of a thoughtful type and becomes obsessed with the only survivor from the car accident whom she regularly visits in hospital, where she is lying in a deep coma. The girls' lives start to take different directions, their relationship breaks down and one of them starts to lose her mind. Any further detail would spoil the plot but the final scene shows one of the girls working in a clean and efficient-looking factory which is in marked contrast to the tacky sweat shop where the girls were working at the beginning of the film. For all the tragedy, the film's message is ultimately one of hope: however hard life is, don't give up.
In detail, two girls whose lives are drifting nowhere are staying rent-free in the flat of a family all but one of whom have been killed in a car accident. One of the girls has a family background that we never learn more about but which is clearly unhappy. She pins her hopes on a rich boyfriend whose father owns the nightclub they frequent. The other girl is more of a thoughtful type and becomes obsessed with the only survivor from the car accident whom she regularly visits in hospital, where she is lying in a deep coma. The girls' lives start to take different directions, their relationship breaks down and one of them starts to lose her mind. Any further detail would spoil the plot but the final scene shows one of the girls working in a clean and efficient-looking factory which is in marked contrast to the tacky sweat shop where the girls were working at the beginning of the film. For all the tragedy, the film's message is ultimately one of hope: however hard life is, don't give up.