Popular reviews

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  Review by nico ng ★

  you know when a film it's just nothing and you go like "it looked beautiful", this is that, except it looks terribly awful.

  it doesn't make sense how bosnia and herzegovina went from submitting quo vadis, aida? (2020), to this film that feels like it was recorded with a potato.

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  Review by nadijaa ★★★½

  i don’t think the pretentious, foreign people in these reviews realise how significant this movie is for bosnian cinematography. sure some of the aesthetic choices were questionable, but to do a modern adaptation of a folk tale- that’s extremely significant to the existence of the bosnian identity- is very brave and praise worthy. at times it felt dull and some of the plot choices were unnecessary but looking at the bigger picture, it was probably one of the better films to come out this year in my opinion. also, any film that isn’t cantered around the oversaturated theme that is the Balkan wars, coming out of the Balkans receives a hugeee plus from me, especially if it’s focused on something good like balada. overall, slay.

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  Review by Mark ★½

  Endless closeups and grainy picture quality, especially in night shots, make this look cheap and amateurish throughout. Add in a bland, lifeless screenplay and a truly bizarre framing device, and you get a film with very few redeeming qualities.

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  Review by Julian ★½

  Amazing ending, but very much every other aspect of A Ballad makes the film feel like a cheap, weak and amateur debut, rather than the work of a director with three previous succesful works 😩

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  Review by Savina Petkova

  girls with guns and dreams of marriage

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  Review by j_beg ★★½

  Interesting experimental-low-budget take on the struggles and dreams of a woman in modern Bosnia. The film has a number of excellent moments, notably the proposal. För Me it took a bit too long to take off, wpcijg didn't always work so well for me and I didn't like the artistic particles too much. But a very interesting, often entertaining watch from a much needed female perspective.
  Very interesting Q&A with the directress afterwards on the technical aspects (the cheap cameras used and which pictures they allowed), expectations and limitations of film production in European film and the plot and it's characters. Honestly, the explanations by Begič after the film were maybe a bit more interesting than the film itself and…

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  Review by anamaana

  Balada je i Ranjeni orao i Hasanaginica

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  Review by ETiric

  This is the best post-war Bosnian film!

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  Review by INTERNATIONAL FEATURE ★★½ 2

  www.international-feature.com

  95th Academy Award for Best International Feature

  (This review contains spoilers.)

  “Freedom is life without fear.”

  A Ballad is the newest film from acclaimed director Aida Begic. Her latest film is A Ballad, the new International Feature submission for Bosnia. The film is about Meri, who is 30 years old and who’s just moved back in with her mother and her brother. Her marriage with Hasan just ended badly and she had to move out quickly, even leaving behind her daughter Mila. There are glimpses of their past relationship, which shows them during their happier moments, but also brief scenes where the marriage started to go wrong.

  Meri hires a lawyer to try to get her daughter back. The lawyer…

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  Review by darin ★★ 1

  As a Bosnian it is saddening that this is what my country has to offer for the Oscars.
  
  A hectic mess of a film who does not know what it is or what it wants. The cinematography disoriented,colour grading too agressive, and the pacing non-existent.
  The directors shot at a meta-narrative was a miss, the ending was nice but aside from that, this really is not worth of carrying the Oscar-candidate belt.