"Sasha" is a 95-minute movie from 2010, so this one has its 7th anniversary next year. The writer and director is Dennis Todorovic and is is his first full feature non-documentary movie, probably also his most known work. The cast includes German actors like Tim Bergmann, but a huge part of it is also from Eastern Europe and of course I have no idea who these are. But that would have been no problem at all if the story had been actually good and you see strong acting many times from actors you have not heard even before. But neither is really true here. The focus is on the main character's homosexuality and the cultural problems it may cause because of his background and where he is from. People from these countries see homosexuality as something entirely different still today, which is pretty sad though. So from this perspective, there is certainly the potential for a quality movie in terms of the subject, but I cannot say that i was too fond of the execution. The script lacked in several departments and realism was one of them. One example would be that the piano teacher is of course gay as well, for what there was no indicator early on at all. Or when they showed us the father all of a sudden standing there with a gun. This was obviously included to make the film more spectacular and avoid further blandness, but it really did not feel authentic, just for the sake of it. And like I already said earlier, the actors do not elevate the sub-par material either. I cannot say that this movie got me curious about Todorovic's other works or any other works from the actors. The part with the Asian girlfriend, who was supposedly so close with the protagonist and knew him so well, but still wasn't able to understand correctly a single thing about him. Sigh. The movie just wasn't working as a whole and I must say 4 stars out of 10 is still relatively generous. Watch something else instead.
Review of Sasha
