Not much to write home about here, other than "beautiful Scottish scenery" and "a few nice romantic vibes". We are in a co-production school example that seems more than anything else to be concerned with getting the quota cabal to go up in relation to the nationality of the actors, locations etc.
The woman George is home from Paris. In Scotland, she helps the family get the harvest in, when she spots the stout Gavin shirtless and wearing suspenders on…
Director Todd S. Yellin's own script actually flows relatively easily, and the acting is fine with empathy in the inflamed family relationships. But it can also be felt that the debut film is groping a bit for an identity in an indie universe full of possibilities. Several situations are tackled a little rough, in contrast to the thorough handling of the wood for the furniture in the workshop.
"Brother's Shadow" constantly tries to be present, but the final finish is missing, and some scenes stand naked without deeper explanation. All in all, a fine, but very narrow debut film.
[...] “Before the Frost" becomes, more than anything, a cavalcade of over-narrated melodramas, where extreme dramatic developments are literally non-stopping.
When one first senses the narrative style's thickly smeared layer-by-layer crises, it can really only go one way, and so does it: Towards the abyss, but only after the story has just taken a few (over) dramatic turns extra. [...]
"Il posto" is a film narrated on a pulse of rest: Pleasantly under-dramatized and with full focus on the closeness of the situations - in dazzling actor direction. Here, Sandro Panseri is a discovery of another world - to bring to life the many strange twists and turns in the encounter with adult life.
The evocative aesthetics of neorealism lay the groundwork with simply phenomenal and uncomplicated narratives. Just as compelling and believable, the frustrations and insecurities flash in the…
