Featured Audience Ratings

• Carlos M

  
  A disastrous drama that feels repetitive and pointless, never making clear what Shortland wants to say with this - and her heavy-handed direction makes even more blatant the way she embraces the most obvious of soap-opera clichés and cheap narrative artifices.

• Debbie E

  
  Jane Campion visuals, only Jane does it so much better; "Two Women" derivative, although there is little to compare, why did this story have to make it to the screen? It is an affront to show these healthy and robust survivors, besmudged with some grime to show the passing… More
  Jane Campion visuals, only Jane does it so much better; "Two Women" derivative, although there is little to compare, why did this story have to make it to the screen? It is an affront to show these healthy and robust survivors, besmudged with some grime to show the passing of time, when there was little left for any one. Rubbish!

• c0up  

  
  'Lore'. Heavy, heavy going alleviated time and time again by the beautifully captured natural imagery. Assured filmmaking by Shortland.

• Walter M

  
  Let's start at the end for this one, shall we? In this case, it is the end of the Third Reich which sends a Nazi officer(Hans-Jochen Wagner) and his wife(Ursina Lardi) packing. While he goes off for one last offensive, she takes her five children to a cabin in the country to… More
  Let's start at the end for this one, shall we? In this case, it is the end of the Third Reich which sends a Nazi officer(Hans-Jochen Wagner) and his wife(Ursina Lardi) packing. While he goes off for one last offensive, she takes her five children to a cabin in the country to hide. That does not last long as the Americans are soon to crash the party. So, she gives her oldest daughter, Lore(Saskia Rosendahl), detailed instructions and directions, along with every precious piece of jewelry she has including her wedding ring, that she is to go to a relative's house near Hamburg if she does not return in three days' time. Lore does not wait that long as her younger brother Gunther(Andre Frid) is caught stealing. Directed by Cate Shortland, "Lore" is a harrowing, provocative and haunting tale of survival. The fact that it involves someone as hateful as Lore should not take away from appreciating the movie's visual poetry. Before the fall was the fairy tale for the children and after it is the reality, as they encounter people who either dislike them or in a state of denial themselves, as she desperately tries to keep her family together. Even though she is at an age when she should know the difference, all Lore has known is what her mother has told her who has followed the Nazi ideology herself, especially the part involving having large families, as she is still having children into middle age.(In retrospect, Lore should know there is nothing to be feared from the Americans but that's not what she has been told.) That's where the title's double meaning comes in, as lore could also be defined as knowledge. So, yes, the movie hits what could be considered a false note in its open ending, but it could also be a sign of hope for the future.

• The Movie W

  
  With the allied forces approaching, Lore (Rosendahl), her younger sister, and her three young brothers, are abandoned by their Nazi party parents and forced to make the lengthy journey from southern Germany to Hamburg where their grandmother awaits their arrival. With just a few of… More
  With the allied forces approaching, Lore (Rosendahl), her younger sister, and her three young brothers, are abandoned by their Nazi party parents and forced to make the lengthy journey from southern Germany to Hamburg where their grandmother awaits their arrival. With just a few of her mother's trinkets to barter for food, Lore reluctantly accepts the help of Thomas (Malina), a young Jewish man recently released from the Buchenwald camp. As her journey progresses, Lore is exposed to the truth and consequences of her parents' beliefs. For much of the running time of Shortland's film I was frustrated by a central plot contrivance which I felt simply didn't ring true. Towards the end, however, we get a plot twist which makes us re-evaluate that frustration but it can't erase the niggling irritation experienced prior to that point. I won't reveal the twist here but I feel most viewers would enjoy 'Lore' more if they were aware of this revelation prior to viewing. Retrospectively I can say it's an impressive piece of work though I must confess to frowning during many scenes, due to being unaware of the full facts. The central performance from Rosendahl is fantastic. She's given little dialogue but brilliantly conveys, through her physical performance, the disappointment of learning everything her parents told her was a cruel lie . Shortland's direction is equally impressive although I would have preferred the plot twist to be revealed visually rather than through a cheap piece of expository dialogue. We're seeing a lot of films helmed by female directors now and they're rarely dull. In fact, so impressed by this new generation am I that, when I see a film has a female director attached, I automatically become more interested. Are women better film-makers than their male counterparts? No, of course not. My theory is that it's much harder for a woman to get a film made and thus the cream rises to the top. I can't think of one female director I could describe as a hack. Shortland is also Australian, a race of people who seem to have a natural gift for film-making. The real standout of 'Lore' though is composer Max Richter who is quickly becoming the best of his generation. The score here ranks with his great work on 2011's 'Perfect Sense'. You may not be tempted to watch 'Lore' a second time but, if you're a music lover, you'll definitely want to hear Richter's score again.