Children of Fate

CHILDREN OF FATE boasts that it's based on a true story, and it shows. It obviously pays more attention to "the way things really happened" than to telling a story or creating characters. The result is a short movie that's uninteresting at best, and incomprehensible at worst, to anyone who isn't a member of the writer/director's family.

Some people have praised the acting, for some reason, but it can most generously be described as competent. The embarrassing moments, such as Anna's lengthy and pointless confrontation with the Soviet soldier, are the fault of the script rather than the performance; the scene just lies there, but even a better actor couldn't have done much with it. The actors recite their lines creditably enough, but don't inhabit the thinness of the characters as written.

The movie's one good facet is the production design. The props, the costumes, even the black-and-white cinematography, do create a sense of the period that's impressive in a small, independent movie. And, with a reported budget of $350,000 for this 14-minute movie, that's no more than we can expect.

Worth watching for wannabe movie-makers who want to see how British Columbia can play WWII-era Hungary. Not worth watching for audiences who want to be entertained and/or enlightened.