Monsters. (2019)

• Year: 2019
• Released: 27 Sep 2019
• Country: Romania
• Adwords: 7 wins & 19 nominations
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8986808/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/monsters
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/monsters
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: Romanian
• MPA Rating: N/A
• Genre: Drama, Romance
• Runtime: 116 min
• Writer: Marius Olteanu
• Director: Marius Olteanu
• Cast: Judith State, Cristian Popa, Alexandru Potocean
• Keywords:

6.3/10

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Monsters. Movie Reviews

A homophobic undercurrent

Many professional critics discuss the aspect of “compromise” in the relationship between the main characters, and between the two protagonists and other minor characters. But I have to make an observation, that – somehow – seemed to have escaped the keen eye of the critics.

The gay relationships in the movie (one in front of the camera, one narrated, and the other one just mentioned) amount to a gruesome caricature. The gay hookup scene is full of cringe details, taken from reality, but elevated to a scale which makes the interactions implausible. The narrated gay relationship is another example of a deceit, lies, cynicism, and emotional corruption. And the third one – the “love of his life” – sounds like a joke.

What is the portrait of the gay man in this movie? Lies, manipulations, cowardice, forever living in the closet, full of self-hatred, and particularly apt for ruining marriages – his own and everyone else’s. Even for Romania in 2019, this portrait is the exception, not the rule. But most importantly, it highlights the deep homophobic undercurrent of this movie. Because the gay men in this movie do not have anything authentic and they apparently do not search for that. This movie is more like a morality tale, and in that it is a total failure.

Deserves 1/10 but cinematography saves it

First of all,i didn´t expect much of this movie,but at least to be decent.The only thing i liked about it was the cinematography which was surprisingly good.However,even if a movie has good cinematography,at the end,if it doesn´t have a strong story no one will care about it.

The story is messy and tries to hard to be ”edgy” sometimes.The main characters are so supposed to meet different people during the entire movie who change the way they see life but none of them seem to have any impact onto them.The problem of the movie is that is looks like a short movie,with long scenes that add nothing to the story and bore the audience.There were moments when i wanted to leave the theatre but i wanted to see it all in order to give a fair review.The story lacks emotion,connection between the main characters.Why are we supposed to care about they´re relationshio if we know nothing about them?

At the end,we are given no conclusion.We dont find out why the characters fell apart or how are they changed by the events that have happened.

On a short note,the aspect ratio is what i mentioned earlier as ”edgy”.I understand the director´s perspective,but for the audience it is truly annoying and unnecessary.

interesting cinema, lacking emotion

Director and script author Marius Olteanu, at his first feature film, demonstrates in ‘Monsters’ that he knows the job. The film, which on these days made its debut on the Romanian screens in Cluj at TIFF and which I saw yesterday at a LGBT film festival at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, is professionally made and has many interesting ideas in its conception, is acted well by a team of actors who are guided with a safe hand, and has a modern, intimate and minimalist theme with references to the Romanian social realities. All the ingredients for a successful film are present, except for one – emotion.

The film describes 24 hours of the lives of Dana and Arthur (or perhaps Andrei, both names are used in the film), a childless couple of professionals in Bucharest, both approaching their 40s. The story is reported at first from the woman’s perspective, then from that of the man, in segments dealing with the same hours in the life of the two, connected with a phone call. Then they get together for the third part of the story. The characters are slow to reveal themselves, we realize gradually that this is a couple in crisis, that this crisis lasts for a long time, that each of them seeks happiness separately, but they also can not live without each other. Why do not they split up? Why do they stay together? Spectators are left to find their own answers. If they exist.

Potentially this an intimate and interesting narrative about two people living an unusual love story, about a relationship that falls apart under social pressure but still refuses to disappear altogether. In the context of the debates about the ‘traditional family’ (in Romania but not only), the film also has a political message, discreetly expressed and not as a manifest. Yet, despite the potential, the film has some execution problems. One of them is length and repeatability. It does not take five screen minutes to express what viewers can understand in thirty seconds (the taxi scenes are an example). There is too little happening between the two characters, and what’s interesting in the story are mostly the side episodes (the gay couple encounter, the chat with the taxi driver). The two lead actors, Judith State and Cristian Popa are very good but they are both too introspect, which makes it difficult to identify with them from the viewers’ perspective. The cinematic ideas are interesting (the parallel segments of action in time, the use of the variable screen formats) but in the absence of emotion, they seem like demonstrative. I also enjoyed Alexandru Potocean and Serban Pavlu’s performances in supporting roles. I look forward to the future movies of Marius Olteanu with the hope that the artistic but first of all human emotions will come to meet his incontestable cinematic skills.