User Reviews

"Bukarest Fleisch" is a German television film from 2007, so it will have its 10th anniversary next year. The writer and director was Andy Fetscher and this is his first long movie. He was still in his 20s here and worked on short films before, including a project named "Bukarest Fisch". But back to this one here. The main character is played by Friederike Kempter and she is also the only cast member that you could call (close to) famous because of her work in "Oh Boy" and the "Tatort" series (Münster). But this is an entirely different genre. It starts off as a thriller, but quickly turns too horror, which is also when this movie gets considerably worse. Quite a shame actually as the premise about a young woman traveling to Romania to find out what exactly happened to her family could have been turned into a tense and edge-of-seat thriller.

But it turned out no such thing. It's probably still an okay outcome for a filmmaker of Fetscher's age, but by general standards it does not hold up and the quality is not good enough. This is possibly due to the film always stuck between gore and thriller and the result is that it does not really elaborate convincingly in any of the two areas. I think the acting here was not really the problem. Yes there was a hammy scene here and there, but I think Kepter (and Iacob) did a good job overall, especially Kempter. Also, sexuality plays a role here. One of them is for men who like blondes, one for those who prefer brunettes. I am certainly more of the latter, but I cannot deny that I really adored Kempter's looks here. She was completely stunning and it helps the film from the visual side that she is in almost every scene. The lesbian action at the end came out of nowhere and felt so random, but I still have to say thank you for it. But this scene alone is not enough to check out the entire film for almost 90 minutes. It may have been aspiring sometimes, but it was just not well-crafted enough to be taken seriously, which resulted in the opposite, namely this film looking ridiculous at times. I give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.

The first half hour of this movie is really promising. The music is very good, and one of the most intense moments I have ever seen is when the Policeman talks to Laura about the death of her family. The actors are doing well, and the camera is professional.

***Begin spoiler***

A student girl from upper class in Germany, Lara, left alone by her parents for a longer time, learns that her parents and her little sister died in an accident in Romania during a so-called business trip. After that the father describes off-screen that he is the key figure in bringing masses of meat infested with a terrible disease - something like mad cow disease - to Romania as aid deliveries. Lara decides to drive to Romania with some student friends of her, where she sees the bodies of her family at the morgue. No further information about the accident is given to her, so she investigates by herself with the help of a mysterious Romanian biker girl, Nikita. She follows her to the place where the accident happened and learns that there was no accident, but her family was killed by someone. One of her friends, Alice, is hurt by something in the woods, and they follow Nikita to her nearby home, where Nikita's angry and armed Brother Milan shows them that he and his sister helped to spread the poisoned meat between children of the street and other poor people, and now the two are trying to steal it back. Lara doesn't believe him and eats one little peace of the flesh and wants to leave, but she has to vomit, and she passes out, with a vision of her dead sister. After waking up, she decides to leave.

At this point (about after half an hour) the horror begins.

*** End Spoiler ***

And it is not only horror as a movie genre, it is horror for the watcher. I understand that it is the most easy and cheapest way to make a horror movie out of the given premises, and I understand that directors and authors have artistic freedom what to do with the money and their skills.

In this case the money and the skills are wasted. If the movie would have taken a different direction, it would have been not so easy to fill the next hour. Instead, we have a classical slasher movie with blood and gore and hide and seek and fear and cry. If you have seen one, you have seen all. The only invention here is the first half hour, and it could be longer because the characters, especially Laras friends, are not really introduced, in fact, they are not introduced because someone thought there is no need for.

This could really have been a remarkable movie about the lies of our clean society, and how we earn dirty cash even when we seemingly are helping others.

Just show a few scenes where Lara's father is officially honored for his activities, he says a few hypocritical words to the public, applause applause, and later he gets the big check for his institute from the minister. Show that he knows from the first minute what he is doing. If you want to be inventive and spare an actors salary, hide him from the watcher and make all his scenes off-screen, even when he is at home.

Show how his position in his family or in his daughter's mind changes, when the disease begins to evolve. Show how he tries to hide what he has done. And show how he fails and is killed by a bunch of his victims. That fills also a movie, certainly not a forgettable slasher movie, but something that lasts in our memory.

The movie gives all premises for that (otherwise I would not write so much about) but does not follow them. This shows a major lack of ideas, and I hope the author who is also the director will only direct in the future, because this is what he can do very well. Elaborating a plot is not his thing.

For the first half hour I give the movie 9 of 10, and for the rest 1. The camera and the actors are good for 2 additional points, so there's a five at the end.

A great great pity ! I would be happy if there could be a way to remake it, even with the same director and team (but with a better author, like me ;-)