EssenceStory Well Deserved Praise

Majorthebys Charming and brutal

Phillida Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

ronchow This film on the life of a college student doubling up as a call girl is watchable but not particularly moving. First of, the girl went into prostitution not to support her college education, but to maintain a flat in a choice location. Right there my feeling for her as a young woman deserving sympathy evaporated. The acting was decent, and if you expect to see much nudity in this film you will be disappointed.Instead, we were exposed to the array of her clientele, from a generous join from Britain to one obsessed with hygiene - rubber gloves in both hands. There was this usual side story of her fleeing from two men who wanted to pimp her, and from the police due to the Viagra-induced death on one client. However, the story overall is fairly simplistic and not engaging enough.This is a film from Film Movements, and I actually expected a higher quality film. As is, it is enjoyable to watch - but just barely.

Avid Climber Slovenian Girl (original title: Slovenka, alternate title: A Call Girl) will give you many chills, but it's not a suspense. It just presents the facts. It's not always pretty, it never gets dirty, it has its good sides, some bad too... neutral seems to be the theme.You'll see her origins, her work, her life, all in a quiet voice. Drama will not become action, pain will not be torment. However, being used to Hollywood, you can expect to be gripping your chair a bit, because all the trappings are there, just not that pre-chewed scenario that would lead you to jump out of your seat.I can only pull a few negative points: the colors are a bit off, the camera work very simple, and the story a bit sombre. My guess is it's low budget movie that was able to pull off a great performance.If you don't mind reading subtitles, go for it.

charlytully Obviously, SLOVENIAN GIRL director Damjan Kozole adheres closely to the Lars von Trier school of filmmaking: make the viewing experience as unpleasant at possible for the watcher. While a plot about an under-supported coed making her way through her higher learning by dabbling in the elder professions has been pulled off loads of times in an interesting fashion (CITY ISLAND comes first to mind among movies contemporary to SLOVENIAN GIRL), it usually requires an erotic element to nail such a story down. Unfortunately, Nina Ivanisin as the title character in Kozole's film does not strike one as a convincing 20-euro-a-crack call girl, let alone meriting the 200 euro specified in this story. Further, the actors playing her johns seem hard-pressed to avoid demanding their money back during the few parting scenes Kozole incorporates into SLOVENIAN GIRL. Last night I saw a similarly-themed film from Israel (THE ASSASSIN NEXT DOOR, written and directed by Danny Lerner). Though Olga Kurylenko as the latter title character has NO sex scenes in her guise as an erstwhile hooker, she exudes more erotic appeal than Ivanisin manages during the entire running time of SLOVENIAN GIRL.

chuck-526 This film comes off as a "slice of life" ...of an unusual life. Its pace is neither hurried nor slow. It doesn't rely on either symbolism (neither obvious nor obscure) or literary references. Except for a few places where bits of music are used to great effect to convey meaning, this film is a dialog-driven story that doesn't require any sense of style. Although a few events may be a little out of strict order, this film doesn't rely on cinematic techniques like flashbacks. Everything we know of the characters' motivations comes from what they say and do - there's no memory nor daydreams nor interior monologue nor voice over. There are no references to either previous or current "politics" (other than the inconvenient traffic snarls caused by the presence of EU officials). This film is not preachy, nor even moralistic; if anything it's somewhat ambiguous or understated.It's too bad this film will probably be classified as "foreign" or "art house", as it's much more mainstream than that would suggest. While this film is not really about "sexiness", there are enough scenes with naked flesh to place it firmly in the current worldwide context. Likewise although this film is not really a "thriller", there's enough suspense (and even some danger) to make it clear it should be taken seriously. The filming and acting are quite good. One of the best examples of good supporting acting is portraying a band that's adequate but by no means great; the required level of mediocrity is played quite well.The dialog is clear and easy to hear throughout. Subtitles are provided whenever necessary and are presented in large yellow letters that are consistently easy to read. I have one quibble though: several places an important message arrives on a cellphone as a text message in a language other than English, and is _not_ subtitled. I always eventually managed to figure out what was going on anyway ...but I would have very warmly welcomed the subtitling of the text messages as well as the dialog.Much of what we see are all the practical problems and little details of a call girl life: multiple cell phones, code names, harassment by pimps, dying clients, mentally unstable clients, unattractive (downright ugly?) clients, continual fear of exposure, suspicion from hotel staff, inability to ask police to intervene normally, unwelcome carryover of massive lying and acting into other areas of life, difficulty balancing two separate lives (sleep, deadlines, finances, etc.), and so on. We also see more typical lives in both a smaller and a large Slovenian city. In the smaller city we're introduced to the overpowering presence and distortion caused by foreign (especially "American") culture. In the large city we see the architecture one would see every day, the disruption of normal life caused by the presence of EU officials, and the ubiquitous presence of the English language (both its very frequent use and all the attempts to learn it better - something like fully half the dialog doesn't even have to be subtitled for English speaking viewers).The most important theme is the "alienation" of big city life, and the relatively reduced (but still substantial) alienation in a smaller city. The second important theme is the "meaninglessness" of life everywhere -- the film isn't saturated by the broodiness one tends to associate with nihilism, but adding together what all the various characters say (including things they _don't_ tell each other) it's hard to draw any other conclusion. Many other potential themes are given glancing attention: excessive materialism, fleetingness of relationships, essential isolation of each individual, growing to adulthood as a "launch" of a new lifestyle, inheritance of mental traits, inadvertently becoming what we despise, bleeding together of life spheres intended to stay "separate", and so on. The frequent references to the "Slovenian Girl" -and even the effects of the death of a client- provide convenient handles for describing this film, but aren't really what it's about.