The Divide

The Divide is NOT an indisputably high-quality, unassailable film, it’s very easy to criticise. Myself, I would have no trouble defending a two star rating, because the script doesn’t bother to solve a couple of things (the short trip out of the bunker, what was that supposed to mean? How and why did “that” get there so quickly?), is careless with time, some of the changes in the behaviour of the characters happen too fast and inconsistently, the actors try a little too hard at times, the repetitive score becomes annoying after a while… But the film is so incredibly depressing, dirty, violent, and disgusting that watching it made me almost sad. It had that effect. The characters, who not even at the beginning were Miss Congeniality but you could still root for them, become really messed-up pricks (Marilyn’s transformation? That was something!). It’s not nice to watch and I’d like to warn anyone interested in it: think very well whether you want to watch this because it’s the sleaziest thing I’ve seen since A Serbian Film, an insult to humanity. In any case, Gens has improved a lot since the average gorefest that was Frontier(s). (28.03.2012)

The hasty and often logic-defying first half is quite solidly balanced by the second, mainly because Gens is clearly not very good at building functional interpersonal relationships. Yet when it comes to "evil is in all of us," he lures the viewer in quite bluntly, culminating in a great ending; the fallout epilogue is a bonus. (04.04.2012)