This is really strange - the low score given by women age 45+. I am 60. I missed the 1st half hour tonight, on Sundance channel, but I'm going to vote 10 on what I saw. I hope I can see the whole thing soon. I know my best friend my age will like it, and probably my mother age 87 would like it.
this segment of movie-goers might very well have been forced by war-buff husbands to see a film they didn't have to much interest in
Oh please. Can't see this happening - NO apparent war enthusiasts I've come across working in a VA hospital many years with many WWII vets (maybe I didn't know because they were sick), nor my father, WWII, and none among dating/marrying Vietnam vets people who've been in war don't see it as a likeable thing . ...And, can't envision being forced, or forcing someone, to see a movie (we see most of them on TV/DVD these days, and we can't force anyone to watch a movie when they can walk into another room).
most women over 45 who see a film like Army of Shadows would not register their opinion on a site like imdb
I wish more would - its like people don't realize we even watch movies. (my mom won't get a computer)
45+-year-old women who do record their opinions on imdb would be those moved to do so for some reason
True for me: I only record 9's and 10's, plus a few rotten ones.
http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=3502124Hmmmmmm....that closely matches my rating of most of the women over 45 that I have met.
I wonder how I'd rate
you.
All I'm going to say is that women at extreme ends of the age of spectrum really young or really old don't seem to get a lot of films, that IMO aren't even that guy oriented.
really young, perhaps, but older people invented movies in the first place, and the movies aren't becoming so sophisticated that adults can't understand them, and children can. I think most of us 'old ones'
love movies like L'armée des ombres.
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Simone S. was not a villian! She was a heroine. She let the resistance men kill her because although she would have sacrificed her own life at any time, she couldn't make an active choice to have her daughter raped all day every day by filthy strangers, (worse than death). She had to do it the passive way - makes perfect sense, and makes her more sympathetic. I did wonder why she couldn't get hold of a razor blade or some way to commit suicide - but they said more than once that she couldn't, for some reasons I didn't understand fully. Maybe if they shot her, she'd feel her sin giving up the 2 names would be better expiated, and would show the Germans they were as tough and disciplined as the enemy.
Never be afraid to laugh at yourself - you could be missing out on the joke of the century.
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max von meyerling
15 years ago
1. She was the villain because she talked. The fact that she did it to save her daughter and died for it shows the harsh judgement of the underground and contrast this with the man who sacrificed himself just to get in and put another resistant out of his misery. It's an unbelievably high, maybe impossibly high standard but one which she didn't live up too.
2. There is the suggestion that the woman is a Catholic and therefore suicide would be out of the question.
3. She sacrifices her life for her daughter and not for the resistance. She was expected to sacrifice her life AND that of her daughter for the resistance.
I would imagine that women could never identify with maintaining that standard in that situation and they project they would have done the same thing if it were them and therefore her fate is very objectionable.
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mrtanner
15 years ago
Just wanted to add my voice to the mix and say that I am a woman of 40 who thought this film was incredible.
I also don't think Mathilde was necessarily painted as a "villain". Even her comrades praised her bravery and dedication and seemed to understand why she did what she did. But by the same token, they had to do what they had to do. An awful situation all around.
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praxis1966-1
15 years ago
I have to agree with mrtanner. The whole point of this movie is to call into question the nature of good and evil, hero and villain. It's beauty is that it defies such simplistic analysis. As Melville was a former member of Cashiers du cinema and therefore a believer in the auteur theory of directing, it's not such a big leap to postulate that everything therein, including the film's muted blue and gray hue, is supposed to suggest that we're dealing with moral ambiguity. Hence why, despite their firm belief in the righteousness of their objective, there was still debate about Mathilde's execution. It's all very existentialist in it's moral relativism, which is why it's timeless; it goes directly to the core of post-modern angst.
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Kitzypoo
15 years ago
I did wonder why she couldn't get hold of a razor blade or some way to commit suicide - but they said more than once that she couldn't, for some reasons I didn't understand fully.
By no means do I have any certain knowledge regarding the "right" answer, but the way I understood her situation is that a suicide would've likely been interpreted by the Germans simply as an attempt to escape, and hence the consequences would've been just as awful to her daughter. Whereas being assassinated by someone else, even willingly (to escape the moral dead end of having to sacrifice either the daughter or the resistance), would possibly be a whole another matter.
At the time of writing this, the rating by Females Aged 45+ has gone even lower, from 4.3 (according to the first post) to 2.9 (with 275 votes). I, too, found the slow pacing a bit demanding at times, even though someone like Tarkovsky is one of my absolute favourite directors, and certainly the film doesn't have many qualities that are conventionally thought to connect with women (romance, children, more personal or family relations, even the more abstract ethical and existential questions, and so on), but still that seems awfully low. Perhaps the tomentingly ambiguous, "back against the wall" sort of ethical and existential questions regarding warfare are just too foreign to them to raise much personal interest, beyond the black-and-white "home front sentiments" like "Say no to war" or "Just wipe out those filthy Whatnots and bring our boys back home" (neither of which are really viable options here)? Or maybe the whole film is just too bleak and fleshless? Whatever the reason(s), I, too, admit to being intrigued.
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