Never been so present in any movie...

I found it similar to Stalker in that it was long and made little sense.

It's the most unique movie I've experienced. A real marvel.

It´s a very unique film: the viewer gets inmersed in a crude and surreal world while the events from the novel unravel in the background. Not much gets explained and not knowing why things are happening makes the experience more distressing. The way the shots flow reminded me of the logic of dreams (the main character travels miles from the castle to his house or viceversa but it all feels like one same long take).
As an adaptation of the book it´s very loose; mainly because it doesn´t really try to tell the story and instead it chooses to throw you in as another filthy peasant.
On a different note, that B&W photography is absolutely insane: so many layers and textures it makes my own -real life and full colours- house look dull in comparison. Well, at least it´s not full of mud and *beep*

I have to admit. This film absolutely baffled me in almost every single way, but I still really enjoyed it because of the spectacle. For the first 20-25 minutes I was starting to wonder about the plot and what it was all about, but I eventually found myself just sucked into the world that the film created and took in every scene.

I definitely think it has been purposefully made to be difficult to convey to madness and squalor of the environment. All of the touches in the camerawork and direction (including direction of the actors) are incredible. For example there are dozens of times where extras and townsfolk gaze into the camera as if wondering what is going on, or why they're on a camera. There are numerous scenes where animals or shrubberies/flowers get in the way of the cameras's view. There are even many times when the camerawork makes it look like its a POV shot, so you feel like you're the 'God' or at least an onlooker.

So many things in the film happened that kept me involved and entertained that it mattered not if it had a linear plot or anything approaching a storyline. I gave it a 7/10 in the end, for what it's worth, because there's only so much you can give to a film that is generally 3 hours of absolute nonsense with barely a start or an ending, but my takeaway from it was that it was unlike anything I've ever seen before and for that reason alone I loved it.