RobertKeronen

With a silly storyline, two usually excellent actors sleep-walking through their roles, and an odd set of parents skulking through their home observing every move their psychotic son makes, this film seems written/directed by someone who has no practical idea about how men and women flirt and seduce each other. I am growing weary of having dreariness, bleakness, and social awkwardness equated with depth and genius. Moreover, the happy parts didn't make me happy, the sad parts were dull, and the rest of it could have been better. Isabella Rossellini was great though, and cinematography was all right, Brighton Beach looking as grim as expected, so I'll give it a 3.

I somehow missed this movie when it came out and have discovered it as late as last week thanks to a friend's recommendation. I can honestly say that I cannot remember another intimate dramatic film, which does so many things so well. The writing is crisp, realistic, nuanced, and even restrained. The cinematography and editing are understated but inspired, enabling the visual storytelling to dominate through marvelous close-ups and framing of images, capturing loneliness and alienation in most memorable ways. The acting is also wonderful, with all of the characters becoming painfully real and vulnerable in the most compelling ways that a film can offer. They reveal their innermost weaknesses with unprotected, raw vulnerability. A real triumph for Roger Michell and Hanif Kureishi, and the rest of the team. A must see for serious film lovers.

A wonderful movie, well directed and very well acted (main characters, especially Anonyma, played by Nina Hoss, and the Russian major, played by Evgeny Sidikhin, were simply superb). I loved that the Russian and German characters are colored as human and not in simple black and white. It is very unfortunate that this film did not get more attention and a wider distribution! I was lucky enough to see it last year at the Toronto Film Festival. As a holder of a Ph.D. in history I was immediately intrigued: I knew about the events depicted in the film and I was concerned about how such brutal rapes would be shown but the director handled it perfectly, emphasizing that rape is more about violence and terror than about sex. The enquiring mind, the emotional understatement, and the moral complexity of this film got unfortunately overlooked by the Academy, possibly because of the "take-no-side" approach to its subject matter. I recommend this movie highly to anyone with interest in history, women's issues, and cinematics. At the same time, it is not for viewers who cannot handle the human reality in its darkest form.

I am a huge fan of Eastern European directors, and think that with movies like Ilmar Raag's "Klass", René Vilbre's "I Was Here", and Veiko Õunpuu's "Autumn Ball", Estonia is - without a doubt! - becoming an important new hotbed of quality European cinema. Alas, "Magnus" does NOT fall into the category of Estonian films worth your attention -- a pretentious and hollow effort from writer and director Kadri Kõusaar, Magnus is possibly one of the worst morality plays to have ever hit the big screen. Kõusaar's self-indulgence is rampant, and her clumsy attempts to get us into young Magnus' head simply put us to sleep. Insipid, frustratingly slow, and completely lacking an emotional edge, "Magnus" is also riddled with remarkably bad dialogue: Being of Estonian descent I speak the language fluently, so no, I wasn't going by the English subtitles. Filled with amateurish acting and pedestrian photography ideas that do not resonate with the viewer, this film never finds a tone and completely fails to involve. Boasting sequences that seem disjointed, it begs to be re-cut all over again, possibly by someone professional this time. It took a lot of patience and endurance to get through the whole movie, and at the end it wasn't worth it. At best, "Magnus" can be viewed as an accomplished failure about children lost to suicide.