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Dust

Dust

List Price: $14.98
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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Dynamic Mixture
Review: Dust is a dynamic mixture of love & hate, attack & defense, power & helplessness, reality & fantasy, lust & rejection, expectations & cruel reality, belief & skepticism, boiled all together in a furnace up in the Macedonian highlands, powered by unimaginable greed for gold and power. It is an adventure which will take you back in time, when people could loose everything in a split second, and then back in present, just enough to help you re-evaluate what you have just seen with today's sense and criteria... Real artistic refreshment from the all-present commercial & worthless Hollywood plastic. Five thumbs up for this excellent movie from Milcho Manchevski!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Dust
Review: DUST is your typical western set in rebellious, turn-of-the-last-century Macedonia, with the two western heroes portrayed by a British and an Australian actor; equally typical is the interwoven story of a modern day burglar falling in love with his nonagenarian victim while occasionally tearing her apartment apart in a search for hidden gold. Okay, maybe "love" is too strong a word. Let's call it a sympathetic bond.
As a story about storytelling DUST is much more successful than it is as either a period western or a modern crime thriller. I enjoyed its quirky, skitterish ways (with emphasis on the word "quirky.") Fans of spaghetti westerns should get a kick out of the over-the-top, exploding blood pellet fight scenes, with Turkish Nationals replacing Federales as the army that couldn't shoot straight.


Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A story that touches your soul
Review: Every now and then there is a movie that is beyond evaluation. There is no logical reason why this film should have such an impact but it does. You are part of the story with out even realizing it until the credits roll by at the end. Than all you can do is sit there.

A dying old lady dying in today's world tells a tail of two brothers in the old west who cross paths and purposes as in most families. We have love, and bullies, and wars. What seems like a fantastic tail that intrigues the listener turns out to be more real than he imagined. Now the listener is on a mission part of which is to carry on the story. And you must carry it from there.


Rating: 4 stars
Summary: DUST DELIVERS!
Review: Finding and trying out DUST from my local Blockbuster was like finding a piece of gold. If you like classic style spagetti westerns in the same vein as Clint Eastwood and Sergei Leone - then this one's for you.

I don't know who this Polish-sounding-like named director is, but he and his film crew managed to make one hellava one-of-a-kind western.

And it shows from the get-go. Starting out in modern-day New York, DUST is a tale that unfolds with twists and turns that will keep you watching on, wondering where this is all leading, and how this strange old woman has possession of old artifacts, from an old pistol to gold coins.

And how does she know about the life and tale of who they belonged to? An American cowboy gunslinger who left America, traveling to foreign shores and making history out of his destiny.

The look and feel of the film is phenomenal, gritty and lovely in a myriad of ways. The overall details was not lost in the making, thus pointing out to me the director's awesome vision for this film.

Sure there were a few things that could have been better, but still in all, DUST was truly unique, and well worth a look at. Somewhat unforgettable in some ways.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Fantastic premise that bites the dust....
Review: From what I see so far, my thumbs down for this movie is definitely a minority opinion, so do scroll up and down to read those who gave it 5 stars.
I said fantastic premise, and it is true, DUST has a premise that is fantastic. This is a beautifully photographed movie, melting from black-and-white into color then back into black-and-white, jumping back and forth between fetchingly photographed contemporary New York and back in time, somewhere in the Ottoman Empire ca. early 1900s -- well, I said "somewhere" but that's because the movie does not make it clear exactly, where, it could have been Bulgaria, Greece, or Albania, but from other reviews I read that it's supposed to be Macedonia, so it contains a touch of the fantastic (time travel, destiny, dizzying coincidences, iconic symbology, etc.), which would've made it my cup of tea, alas it's such a hodgepodge of a hard-to-follow plot that it left me frustrated in the end. I know that if I watch it a second time I'll pick up on the many nuances that I've missed, on the other hand, it's so terribly cruel and bloody that I can't put myself through such an agony again. The film is littered with shots of (a few among many nauseating takes)of sheep, that was halfway shorn, with its pelt dangling, being shot and tossed around, a child who pauses suckling on mom's breast to smoke a cigarette, a surrealistic mishmash of people shooting at each other, you really don't know who's the enemy, who's the good guy or the bad guy (though it's hinted that the Ottomanis are the baddies) and you simply get tired trying to understand the plot, and the mind of the director who strung this whole thing up.
That said, yes it's the story of two brothers who feud over a woman in the Wild West, then the loser takes off for the Ottoman lands in order to earn gold for killing people, his other brother follows him and lordy! FINDS him in the middle of a butcher-style battle, and while none of the twists/turns/motivations make sense, the last minute bond depicted between the 90-year old elderly woman (revealed to be the little girl born in the middle of a battle field while everyone around her was getting killed by everyone) and the black man who has entered her apartment to steal her money to pay off the corrupt NYPD cops who're threatening him with shooting off his kneecaps, is quite touching (even believable).
Pheeewwww! I am breathless just trying to tell this tale and keep up its pace.... Nevertheless, there is a sensitive twist to the story (the friendship between the old lady and her would-be mugger), as well as the above mentioned beautiful photography. So if you don't mind blood, gore, and a convoluted plot, go ahead and rent it.


Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A must see one...
Review: Great story of mixing The West and The East , in the manner of the faboulos macedonian director Milco Mancevski.Eventhough he has been educated in the USA, the euro scent is just unbeatable.The time is beggining of the 20th century, protagonits are basicly one 'new world' gunner, and a tough local rebel ... both with no common needs or intentions ...seemingly.On one hand this movie so historical, but at the other, more important one , is so modern.Watch this movie once, and it will hunt you to watch it twice ...or at leste it will force you thinking of it:)

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Dust is a Must for any David Wenham fan!
Review: How to begin.... I purchased this movie looking to find other films starring David Wenham (besides LOTR) and was truly blown away. The style of the film was quite unexpected and the way the story unfolds was completely original. (I don't want to give antyhing away!) This movie is difficult to categorize - it's not your typical western, not your typical family drama, not a typical anything. The acting is superb, especially David Wenham. While there isn't a huge amount of dialogue in his scenes, he is able to convey such a range of emotions with is face and body language that he doesn't have to say anything. The relationships in the film are gritty and real and the violence, while significant, doesn't seem overdone - it's appropriate for the tone of the movie and the life the characters lead. The cinematography is breathtaking - Manchevski's story and directing are gritty and beautiful at once and David Wenham is raw, harsh, ruthless and, of course, stunning!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Real to the fullest extent
Review: I have never seen a battle in a movie presented so real. People didn't just get shot and die, but they screamed in agony and and shook on the dusty land. Their taut faces reflected the fear of death. Watching those scenes was simply perplexing, however, it reminded me that it has actually happened and still happening somewhere in the world.
Manchevski doesn't deviate from his intention-to ridicule human's greed and lust for something material. Macedonian Orthodox priest on the same table with Turk soldiers, foreigners scrambling the destiny of the people, an old woman changing the story as she pleases...it all has meaning and reason.
This movie deserves more then five stars for the very fact that it is a masterpiece looking from every aspect of it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Art house films are meant for intelligent people.
Review: If you found this film difficult to follow, then maybe you should stick to your "no-brainer" mainstream movies. DUST is an excellent film, including the writing, acting, directing and definitely the photographing. I had no problem with the switching between the N. Y. and Macedonia stories. It pretty much summed up the greed and violence in present-day N. Y. to the same thing that happened all those years ago in Macedonia. In other words--nothing has changed. And America is not anymore civilized than Macedonia. A perceptive film for people with intelligence.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A film that rewards people curious enough to explore it.
Review: It's like this...I originally bought this movie because I had seen David Wenham in LotR, thought he was very nice looking, and got this film hoping for further opportunities to stare into his limpid blue eyes and gaze at his pout. What actually happened was that I was sucked into this movie on its own merits, and ended up very impressed with it. Some reviews say that it is difficult to follow - in my own estimation I reckon that the first time you watch this you take in most of the functional bits of information (and maybe marvel at the nice shots), but you will feel confused/cheated by the numerous un-subtitled speech that is included in the dialogue. My suggestion, watch the movie again with the DVD subtitles turned on. Suddenly, all the foreign language dialogue is revealed to you and you will a: see a whole different layer to the film that the director clearly intended only to reveal to people who were curious enough to translate all the languages being spoken, b: suddenly understand a couple of things you might not have done and c: appreciate your first viewing and the general confusion of the 'hero' in the midst of all this dialogue that he didn't understand.

That doesn't mean you should watch it the first time around with subtitles. Please don't. I suspect that will spoil everything.

Summary: Very clever. Much respect to the director. A good film to watch if you like films that challenge you a bit.

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