When a Rose is not a Rose

comments 8
Film

It’s quite flattering when you get an email from a film director asking me to review their film. I wouldn’t class myself as a film critic or reviewer. Merely someone who enjoys film. All sorts of films. And I enjoy watching as many as I can.

So when I got an email from Kemal Yildrim asking me to review his indie film Rose, I said yes. Why not?

ROSE is based on truth this is a powerful gritty drama story of our time, set in a fictional place Hellville, an unspoken world that exists near you. Rose is a hopeful woman broken by drugs, prostitution and Blondie, the Czar of Hellville. Rose finds herself and her six-year-old daughter at Hellville’s mercy. Rose must fight for survival from Blondie’s brutal iron grip in pursuit of happiness.

I’ve figured out my ‘why not’. Because I’m a little bit conflicted. Between being all British and nice and being honest. After all, I feel like I’m pretty damn honest on my blog and changing that because of one thing would be wrong. Right?

Okay here it is. I got through about an hour of Rose. With just under half an hour left, I just couldn’t watch any more of it.

It’s not that I was bored. It’s that I just couldn’t watch the film. It’s grim. Dirty. Grimy. Depressing. The characters are mostly awful people. And I couldn’t watch the rest of it. I guess you could argue that they’re ‘real’ people, but to me they felt like over exaggerated versions of what their real life versions are like.

Perhaps I should have stuck it out. It’s very, very rare that I just stop watching a film. But I couldn’t bring myself to keep watching. Rose was far too bleak for me to keep watching.

I’m sure if I was a ‘proper’ film critic or reviewer I could say something more constructive. But, I’m just a person who enjoys their films and knows what sorts of films I enjoy. Sadly, Rose was not one of them.

I do have one positive I can take away from this though. Got to test out my brand spanking new Chromecast for watching this film. And it worked perfectly. Streaming the film from YouTube on my phone to Chromecast, plugged into my amp. (You knew it’d be something like that… Didn’t you?)

8 Comments

  1. I feel you as I have also watched it also and although I did get through it I really struggled as well. It is very bleak indeed and hard to watch. I do not mind that if there is a story that captivates me, but this did not manage to do that. It is very low budget and it really shows, especially the sound was bad even though they used booms, which I did not understand. Still have to review this film myself.

    • Yeah, technically I couldn’t find anything to be positive about either. The actor who played Blondie played it so obviously.

      Like you, if a film is depressing, it’s fine. But it needs a story. A good story. Like Sleepers or Grave of the Fireflies. Those the are grim, but the story is really captivating.

  2. It’s my dream that a director would ask me to review one of his movies: either Michael Bay or Shyamlan. I love them both so much. Masterworks of their craft, really. How did this director end up tracking you down, anyway?

    • I have no idea how he tracked me down. Absolutely none. It’s not as if I’m a prolific film blogger or anything! Maybe I seemed like a ‘nice’ blogger who’d be tactful and nice…

  3. The think with bleak films for me is that they need to have something that pushes them forward. A while back, someone recommended ‘Hotel Rwanda’ to me and after that, I went looking for other films about the Rwandan Genocide – obviously a very bleak subject. However, I managed to find several films that we really good films that didn’t sugarcoat the realities but that were really good films that kept you watching.

    I think the thing with films with bleak outlooks is that they need something else to keep them driving forward, such as action or the story of a single character you can root for.

    • Exactly that. Something like Black Hawk Down is pretty dark, and but it has something in it you can care about that will make you want to watch on.

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