Saturday, October 31, 2009
HUNG
Today's movie was the Russian version of Twelve Angry Men
and it is a much more elaborate production. Very well constructed. Acted.
The structure is simple. Jurors, sure of the defendants guilt all hurry to reach a verdict when one man says "not guilty".
Incredulous, they take it from there.
Each has a chance to tell his story. Each has a hook into the case.
The defendant in this case is Chechen and, therefore, a minority with a strong ethnic prejudice against him.
His story is interwoven with the drama in the jury room and so the action is taken "outside" to break the monotony which was so difficult to shake in the first film.
There is also more closure after the verdict here and we are taken into that situation as well.
It is a long film, 160 minutes. This breaks my rule on long films. The time flows quite quickly. I only looked at my watch twice.
The other thing about this film is that it is post-modern. It breaks the Chechen story up in abstract bits. We put it together. In a way, that story has nothing to do with the verdict except to paint a clearer picture of the situation of the defendant.
I liked it very much. I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5.
