The Lonliest Planet

It has been a long held debate as to how much influence film critics have on the success of a film. There are some they can influence and others they cannot.
There are two film critics in Australia who I admire and respect more than any others in the world, they are Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton. Each week they have a movie review show which I watch religiously. They know about film and while I may not always agree with their opinion I respect it because they know what they are talking about. As you can imagine there are lots of films out there to see and I do not always have the time to see every film that is released. Usually I know enough about a  film to know that I will not enjoy it and I'll avoid it. But occasionally there are films that I need to rely on someone else's opinion to help decide if I should go see a film. This is one such film. Margaret and David's opinion of the film helped me decide to see it. They did not like the film all that much, but the way they described it got me intrigued. To say this film is subtle is putting it mildly. The film is about a couple on a hiking trip in the Caucasus Mountains. They have a guide who is helping them on their trip. The film is just mostly the three of them walking. An incident happens which changes the tone of the film but that's about all. Even the incident is not fully explained. We do not know much about the couple either but just that they are about to get married. Despite all that boring subtlety I still sat through the entire film. I knew that there was an 'incident' so for the first half of the film I felt a great deal of tension as I waited for something to happen. I did not know what sort of 'incident' it was going to be so was on the edge of my seat waiting for it to happen. I must say that writer director Julia Loktev does a great job with changing the tone of the film in the second half after the 'incident'. You can really feel the tension in the way the characters act and behave.
Julia has chosen a very good looking and charming couple to play our leads. Gael Garcia Bernal is familiar to you from other films but Hani Furstenberg is probably not. Despite that they make a nice average looking couple. Despite the fact that we know very little about them you still come to care about them over the film. Especially after the 'incident'. Bidzina Gujabidze does is good as their guide. He makes a suitably creepy presence that keeps you on edge, making you think he might do something to our lovely couple.
Worth seeing if you want to see a film that is vastly different to most films you have seen. Open to many different interpretations so it might not be the type of film for you if you like things fully explained.