25 reviews
wow! just watched "the trap" or "klopka" which is the Serbian title for this film & i hope that it is eligible for next year's academy award for foreign language category. i was riveted from beginning to end by the story which really makes you think of the value of human life & what we are all worth in this world. at one point a character even mentions 911 & the way in which the u.s. government placed different monetary values on people depending on how much money the made when they were alive & working. the acting is superb throughout from the mother & father to the kid who is the main character of the story. this is definitely a movie for people who like to think & feel real human emotion; and not for anyone looking for car chases & mindless entertainment. please see this great film.
Another exhibition, that you don't need big bucks or have to shoot your movie in another country, if yours isn't financially wealthy ... Klopka (The Trap as it is called internationally) is a fine example of good Serbian cinema.
If the definition of "film noir" is indeed "low-key lighting, a bleak urban setting, and corrupt, cynical characters" (as indicated in an urban dictionary), than this hits the mark! (maybe the cynical part isn't exactly on the spot or let's say Bogart-like, but other than that, you got yourself a winner here). The good thing about this description is, that this should be enough for you to judge, if you want to see the movie or not! :o)
If the definition of "film noir" is indeed "low-key lighting, a bleak urban setting, and corrupt, cynical characters" (as indicated in an urban dictionary), than this hits the mark! (maybe the cynical part isn't exactly on the spot or let's say Bogart-like, but other than that, you got yourself a winner here). The good thing about this description is, that this should be enough for you to judge, if you want to see the movie or not! :o)
We went to the showing of Klopka at the Berlinale without any info or knowledge of the film...basically it was the only one we could get tickets for on a night when we could find a babysitter.
Anyway, we arrived with no preconceptions and the film was simply brilliant. The story was thoughtful without being pretentious, the acting was superb, and the little nods to Serbian society (and how that reflects on the rest of us as well) were thought-provoking without being in your face. Hopefully everyone will have the chance to see this movie, but I guess not...if you do, don't miss it...and congratulations to the people behind it for a wonderful achievement.
Anyway, we arrived with no preconceptions and the film was simply brilliant. The story was thoughtful without being pretentious, the acting was superb, and the little nods to Serbian society (and how that reflects on the rest of us as well) were thought-provoking without being in your face. Hopefully everyone will have the chance to see this movie, but I guess not...if you do, don't miss it...and congratulations to the people behind it for a wonderful achievement.
Every serious moviegoer enters each theater with the hope that this film will be that little gem that one can expect at most once a year (and some years it doesn't happen at all). This film is that little jewel; I was lucky enough to see it at its premier in the Berlinale. It asks the question, "what is a good man"? Can a man be good in some parts of his life and not at all good in others? In life, who becomes the ultimate arbiter of goodness? The film also introduces an interesting tension around traditional gender roles -- the husband/father expected to be the provider -- even while portraying seemingly modern women. This tension is an important driving force, in addition to the difficult challenge facing the main character. The resulting violence that occurs is at once completely believable and yet shocking; seemingly ancillary to the main plot is one scene of senseless violence against a street child that is quite breath-taking. There is a great symmetry to this movie, centering around a particular street corner on which that child hustles as a window-washer. We return to this place again and again, at different times and in different psychological states. Overall this film is masterfully crafted and acted with complex layers and much to reflect upon. I recommend it in the highest terms.
While on line for a film on the opening day (yesterday) of the 2008 Palm Springs International Film Festival, a woman (former film professor) I knew from the previous year's Festival, raved about seeing "The Trap."
This morning I saw "The Trap" and was overwhelmed by it. Without question the most riveting film I have EVER seen. The director has perfect pitch: the story, direction, acting, photography, music are truly perfect. It's a tense thriller which addresses many moral questions. In many ways it reminds me of last year's "The Lives of Others." If you liked that movie, this one should definitely be on your must-see list.
The audience was stunned at the end of the film and after a flurry of applause, sat silently throughout the end credits.
This morning I saw "The Trap" and was overwhelmed by it. Without question the most riveting film I have EVER seen. The director has perfect pitch: the story, direction, acting, photography, music are truly perfect. It's a tense thriller which addresses many moral questions. In many ways it reminds me of last year's "The Lives of Others." If you liked that movie, this one should definitely be on your must-see list.
The audience was stunned at the end of the film and after a flurry of applause, sat silently throughout the end credits.
I gave mark 10/10 to this movie. Maybe the reason is that, lately, since "Sideways" actually, I haven't seen any movie that would touch me at all. And I watch a lot of movies. This one provoked tears many times, it's overwhelming on so easy, non-pretentious way.
Let's back to the subject. The story is very true, complex, convincing. Acting brilliant. Although the movie is a bit slow, it attracts like a magnet, so you can not keep an eye out of it. There are maybe some strange coincidences, but they do not spoil anything. Sunspense and thriller is present all the time.
It raises many questions: "What would I do if I were him", "What is the limit of my love to my child"... Great psychological dilemma, makes you think all the time. It is true European movie, with some American influence, but only on a good way. If you like, at least for a moment, to escape from Hollywood crap, I recommend this movie 100%.
Let's back to the subject. The story is very true, complex, convincing. Acting brilliant. Although the movie is a bit slow, it attracts like a magnet, so you can not keep an eye out of it. There are maybe some strange coincidences, but they do not spoil anything. Sunspense and thriller is present all the time.
It raises many questions: "What would I do if I were him", "What is the limit of my love to my child"... Great psychological dilemma, makes you think all the time. It is true European movie, with some American influence, but only on a good way. If you like, at least for a moment, to escape from Hollywood crap, I recommend this movie 100%.
- daveadams25
- Nov 22, 2007
- Permalink
- fablesofthereconstru-1
- Apr 22, 2009
- Permalink
If you are looking for a date movie then it is not a good choice but if you are looking something with a serious, really appealing with true to life events and a strong grip on audience throughout the movie, then simply go for it. I promise it is a collection grade movie worth to be watched twice. The story, acting, direction and movement of the movie was superb. Cinematography and the expression of human behavior was so realistic that you can not leave your seat even if you have a strong desire to go to rest room. Therefore I would say it was overall a masterpiece and needs to be placed in your personal collection shelf. Give it a try you will not be disappointed.
Today, when its a time of silly Serbian movies, there is a little hope that you will see a Serbian movie and say that this movie you CAN compare with other American movies.It doesn't have to be good or bad. I saw Klopka on Fest.I was expecting a good movie.Finally good Serbian movie!I got it.Cast is very promising:Nebojsa Glogovac(who is very good in this movie),Natasa Ninkovic(also very good in this movie),Anica Dobra(good)and Miki Manojlovic.Directing is not bad by director of Apsolutnih Sto(Absolute Hundred)Srdan Golubovic but he does some mistakes in it.Vuk Kostic disappointed a little bit but he is OK.Kids are just fantastic!
There are some jokes which are not created for this movie(when Mladen is in the bank)and some excellent solutions(when a girl gives Mladen headphone to listen the music).Movie is little bit slow and without charisma but, what can I say: It is a serious Serbian movie.
There are some jokes which are not created for this movie(when Mladen is in the bank)and some excellent solutions(when a girl gives Mladen headphone to listen the music).Movie is little bit slow and without charisma but, what can I say: It is a serious Serbian movie.
- sarabubasara
- Feb 23, 2007
- Permalink
This is yet,another tale of parental love & what they will do for the lives of their children. A 30 something couple finds out that their young son is suffering from a heart condition, and the only place that they can bring him for the surgery that can save his life is in Germany. The hitch:the price tag (we're talking thousands & thousands of Euros). The Mother puts an advert in the local newspaper that they need money for the operation. The hope comes in the form of a stranger who will give them the thirty thousand Euros they need,but with a price. The father must assassinate somebody. What follows is a taut, intense morality play with a twist. This is European film making at it's best. No MPAA rating here, but serves up lots of foul language & some violence (although nothing too gory for those with weak stomachs)
- Seamus2829
- Oct 18, 2008
- Permalink
You have to see it through the eyes of transitional society. I guess than, that people from Eastern Europe and Soviet Union don't need this description of "what's going on during post-communism"...
For me "Klopka" represents great acted documentary, rather than piece of art...
Belgrade is like any other capitol (with over 1,000,000 people) in this world, so the mentality is pretty much the same. You have a lot of problems, a lot of noise, pollution, anger, etc. going on, and all that is speed-ed up with fast forward, which doesn't mean that you can't enjoy other landmarks of the city. Also every large city has ghetto, but in this city it spreads from entrance till the exit, covering 90-95% of the territory. That is life in the transition. A group of people holds fortune, for others there are small paychecks, joblessness, bad surrounding, gangs, etc. all in all, big concrete jungle, and since heart pumps blood, the things are pretty much the same in the rest of the country...
In this movie we see an "average" (or if I can call it "middle class") family struggling from day to day, or how we like to call it "surviving till tomorrow". Life is almost exactly the same in every other Serbian family. So each day brings new problems, but this day a big problem knocked on you door and said "Your kid has heart problem, it's serious, he can die any time soon... he's going to need a heart surgery". Surgery usually costs a lot, but in this country, it can't be done, and you haven't earn that much money in the past 5-10 years... facts are facts, get ready, go... what are you going to do? It's all about life value/price, love for your family, love for your child, depression, anger, betrayal, sadness, and everyday transitional life. Crossroads and dead ends everywhere you go, no matter what you do, and you don't have enough time to think about it at all, you must go with the flow... sadly, that's the true face of Serbian reality, and yes!!! the transition is not a boundary, it can happen to me, you, anybody else... the question is how you gonna deal with that?
For me "Klopka" represents great acted documentary, rather than piece of art...
Belgrade is like any other capitol (with over 1,000,000 people) in this world, so the mentality is pretty much the same. You have a lot of problems, a lot of noise, pollution, anger, etc. going on, and all that is speed-ed up with fast forward, which doesn't mean that you can't enjoy other landmarks of the city. Also every large city has ghetto, but in this city it spreads from entrance till the exit, covering 90-95% of the territory. That is life in the transition. A group of people holds fortune, for others there are small paychecks, joblessness, bad surrounding, gangs, etc. all in all, big concrete jungle, and since heart pumps blood, the things are pretty much the same in the rest of the country...
In this movie we see an "average" (or if I can call it "middle class") family struggling from day to day, or how we like to call it "surviving till tomorrow". Life is almost exactly the same in every other Serbian family. So each day brings new problems, but this day a big problem knocked on you door and said "Your kid has heart problem, it's serious, he can die any time soon... he's going to need a heart surgery". Surgery usually costs a lot, but in this country, it can't be done, and you haven't earn that much money in the past 5-10 years... facts are facts, get ready, go... what are you going to do? It's all about life value/price, love for your family, love for your child, depression, anger, betrayal, sadness, and everyday transitional life. Crossroads and dead ends everywhere you go, no matter what you do, and you don't have enough time to think about it at all, you must go with the flow... sadly, that's the true face of Serbian reality, and yes!!! the transition is not a boundary, it can happen to me, you, anybody else... the question is how you gonna deal with that?
- tomaas-ekkerr
- Apr 8, 2008
- Permalink
I think there is a big problem with this film because it is so much imitating American films. And not just those. A little of everything the director likes. Acting is very bad and unconvincing. I was very disappointed. So many shots that don't carry none significance at all. It seems like they tried everything. Such a subject, such a psychological subject and they gave more attention to shots and none to relations and emotions. I wrote a message on a message board about this film. I really don't believe that this film is good just because it looks like it's from USA. Yes it's a big subject, Balzac and Dostoyevski wrote about it long before we were all born, but it was done so weakly. The whole cinema laughed at loud when an actor called Manda appeared on the screen, even tough it was not supposed to be funny. That is not good for the film. I mean there are two parents who are in a situation worst for any parent, and two of them are acting so weak. That's a director's mistake.
You must see this film. Utterly and totally amazing. A perfect film, matched only by Body Heat and Fargo for its merciless exploration of the phenomena of criminality. The plot is so tight you can't put a razor blade between its uncemented blocks. The protagonist is trapped on the horns of terrible a dilemma, and does the only thing he can do in the situation. His choice is utterly believable and utterly horrifying. The consequences equally so. The ending is as inevitable as it is appropriate and yet I wish it weren't. But, like everything else in this film, it is as it must be. But the worst thing of all is that it could happen to any one of the tens of millions of equally vulnerable citizens of the great Uninsured States of America just as easily as in a Second World backwater like Serbia. Now that's really horrifying!
- [email protected]
- Sep 25, 2009
- Permalink
The movie is very heavy,but also the very truth.Couple with ordinary jobs need money for the surgery,but in the land of transition that is a lot of money.What would You do if you was in that situation? Humanity in us told us that we should do anything for lives of our families!The pain of life when we are in problems,the way of thinking when you end up in the corner without way out!!! I would recommend this movie to all people,so they can see how life can change in a part of a second!One second you are very happy,next one you rushing for money to stop the misery.Now a days that is a awfully truth in the countries on "The Balkan" (Serbia,Montenegro,Bosnia,Croatia,Macedonia)!!
Most realistic movie in state like Serbia. Glogovac is one of the best actors in Serbia.
Sad and painful but very nice scenography.
- vuks-53375
- Oct 1, 2019
- Permalink
One of the best movie I have seen. Usually I can predict what is going to happen in every movie but that was not the case with this movie. Very good!
- goca-63575
- Feb 4, 2021
- Permalink
I had watched the movie yesterday evening and I still clearly remember the father's face and his misery. He has done excellent acting.
The movie feels very realistic. The closeness of the family is well built-up.
The situation that the family finds itself in is unfortunately very real. Life can present tough challenges that do not have a method to solve.And there are moments where the situation overwhelms you and there are moments when the protagonists are composed in spite of the challenges.The movie honestly captures both kinds of moments.
The movie has excellent emotional content. The director has shown mastery at presenting tension.There are silent shots which convey so much about the situation.
The plot is not a filmy unreal plot - there are aspects that add and take away some of the perfect Hollywood style smartness and instead presents the weaknesses that real life harbors.The man who sets the trap is himself weak as the story reveals.
The wife has acted well - very convincing. The wife is in a story thread, unaware of the thread her husband is trapped in and this dichotomy is presented well and the credit goes to the wife's acting.
The husband is the one who won my heart. The sincere person that he is all through the movie is remarkable. Though forced into a mistake, he tries to do the right thing as he says and he takes it all the way. Sometimes you like a movie because you like the main protagonist in the movie - this protagonist is one such.
The way the story line is structured reminded me of Hawaii,Oslo where just a little portion of the story happens in the current where as most of the story happens in a flashback.
The only thing that was not convincing to me was the way the husband takes up the task with very inadequate payment.
The movie feels very realistic. The closeness of the family is well built-up.
The situation that the family finds itself in is unfortunately very real. Life can present tough challenges that do not have a method to solve.And there are moments where the situation overwhelms you and there are moments when the protagonists are composed in spite of the challenges.The movie honestly captures both kinds of moments.
The movie has excellent emotional content. The director has shown mastery at presenting tension.There are silent shots which convey so much about the situation.
The plot is not a filmy unreal plot - there are aspects that add and take away some of the perfect Hollywood style smartness and instead presents the weaknesses that real life harbors.The man who sets the trap is himself weak as the story reveals.
The wife has acted well - very convincing. The wife is in a story thread, unaware of the thread her husband is trapped in and this dichotomy is presented well and the credit goes to the wife's acting.
The husband is the one who won my heart. The sincere person that he is all through the movie is remarkable. Though forced into a mistake, he tries to do the right thing as he says and he takes it all the way. Sometimes you like a movie because you like the main protagonist in the movie - this protagonist is one such.
The way the story line is structured reminded me of Hawaii,Oslo where just a little portion of the story happens in the current where as most of the story happens in a flashback.
The only thing that was not convincing to me was the way the husband takes up the task with very inadequate payment.
- nsvrzikapa
- Sep 1, 2013
- Permalink
- rome1-595-390251
- Aug 13, 2014
- Permalink
Klopka is a suffocating film, so dense in moral righteousness, it defies criticism. It is a lot like the post-Milosevic Serbia (morose, self-pitying and self-important) but not for the reasons its makers would like us to think. The story is presented as a mirror to modern Serbia, but it is very unoriginal, sharing a similar structure with numerous European films: A decent, if somewhat hapless, man agrees to kill a stranger to earn the money that will pay for the operation to save his only child's life. To say anything else would be to spoil the movie, although the plot moves along with unnecessary predictability and contrivance. The actors are highly competent, but they are not given much room to inject any ambiguity into their characters. Only Miki Manojlovic's performance lifts the film from its manufactured faux-noir ordinariness. As the vacuous, soulless Milos, he is the only character that can be considered unique to modern Serbia.
Srdan Golubovic is a promising director. Nearly each shot in the film can be blown up as a still photograph and displayed in an exhibition. He is in control perhaps excessively so Ultimately, the film collapses under its own relentless depression. We are not free to question as to how a professional couple leading modest and frugal lives without any debt burden cannot raise 26,000 Euros. Certainly, it is not because they splash on fashion. (Nebosja Glogovac as Mladen wears a couple of tattered gray tops throughout the film. Much is made of his 30-year old Renault.) If you don't know any better, you'd come out of cinema thinking that this could happen only in Serbia and society is to blame. The truth is that Serbia's poor is much better off than those of the United States. At least there is a public health system in Serbia that works mostly It is a pity. Because one scene in the film is so fraught with genuine suspense, it leaves the viewer wondering what a better film Klopka would have been if the filmmakers left some of their melancholy at home before coming to the set.
Srdan Golubovic is a promising director. Nearly each shot in the film can be blown up as a still photograph and displayed in an exhibition. He is in control perhaps excessively so Ultimately, the film collapses under its own relentless depression. We are not free to question as to how a professional couple leading modest and frugal lives without any debt burden cannot raise 26,000 Euros. Certainly, it is not because they splash on fashion. (Nebosja Glogovac as Mladen wears a couple of tattered gray tops throughout the film. Much is made of his 30-year old Renault.) If you don't know any better, you'd come out of cinema thinking that this could happen only in Serbia and society is to blame. The truth is that Serbia's poor is much better off than those of the United States. At least there is a public health system in Serbia that works mostly It is a pity. Because one scene in the film is so fraught with genuine suspense, it leaves the viewer wondering what a better film Klopka would have been if the filmmakers left some of their melancholy at home before coming to the set.
- ruhi-yaman
- Apr 11, 2008
- Permalink
This is the best Serbian drama-thriller movie ever made.
"The Trap" is full of tense and stress scenes because Mladen (Glogovac) and Marija (Natasa) do not have money for the heart operation of their son. It describes a real life situation because every month in Serbia there is a kid who needs urgent operation and his parents do not have the necessary money.
Nebojsa Glogovac, who was the most talented and best actor of his generation in Serbia, played the role of his life in "The Trap"(Klopka).
My Rating : 3/10
Starts off fine and then leaves a huge disappointment. I do not recommend this movie. Has a good premise but unfortunately doesn't deliver.
Some viewers have undoubtedly loved this however I simply stopped caring half way through. 3/10.
Starts off fine and then leaves a huge disappointment. I do not recommend this movie. Has a good premise but unfortunately doesn't deliver.
Some viewers have undoubtedly loved this however I simply stopped caring half way through. 3/10.
- AP_FORTYSEVEN
- Sep 30, 2018
- Permalink
- johntheholder
- Nov 27, 2014
- Permalink
- rinakarinaka
- Mar 14, 2020
- Permalink