User reviews

This movie is disturbing and unsettling , especially if you are a parent.For me this movie belongs to the horror genre.The music less 2 hours are filled with magnificent performances.A very predictable climax has been turned into something everlasting by the talented caste.

My Rating : 7/10

'Miss Violence' maintains a certain tension throughout and because of the incredible acting you do end up believing their miserable life and their family secrets.

It's a disturbing watch and I can only recommend it to moviegoers that like such content - it also has a somewhat of an arthouse feeling to it which I found appealing.

A well known Buddhist proverb goes that 'pain is inevitable, suffering is optional'. By extension violence is inevitable, loss and tragedy are inevitable, but how we let them into our lives makes a world of difference. It matters how a filmmaker reconfigures anxieties into the heightened reality of film, it matters how we as viewers allow our gaze to lucidly inhabit things.

Here's what I mean. In a nutshell the film is about limits to vision. A father keeps his middle-class family under strict and abusive control, almost trapped in their apartment, with exchange for the relative comforts this life provides them. The fridge is always stocked, they can have icecream, and once they finish their homework the reward is a trip to the beach, sometimes postponed.

Ostensibly we have a powerful indictment of this materialist life that in some level is true for most, a life with no spiritual horizons, a boxed safety where mechanical effort is punished or rewarded, and the ripples of violence it sends out.

But if you really look? If you don't just accept this passively wrapped in a box as a lesson on evil? In other words if you adopt the questioning attitude that the father inside the film denies his family and is part of the damage to them, if you begin to question these imposed walls and limits?

The film itself is materialist and constricts our vision. The camera always frames cleanly, the actors are waxen figures on wallpaper, the dialogue is stilted. Animal instincts are even hammered home with footage of apes on TV. All deliberately so but this changes little if it doesn't wake us from our viewing stupor. We have here a world of stifled imagination by stifling ours.

Deeper, the film is content with just the lesson, we never finally at some point enter these lives to know the people behind the masks. We see these people just as Welfare does when they visit, not from within their world but as calculating arbiters. We miss the powerful tension that upsets social workers in these cases, where the abusive parent is still in spite of everything else looked up as a father.

So instead of being called to juggle these states of conflicting truth, we end up after a certain point with an incomprehensible monster and his victims. Of course these monsters exist, which brings us back to how a filmmaker chooses to reconfigure the existence. Saying 'but it happens' doesn't cut it. So do you provoke a damning answer that we can put aside and forget, cleansed for the night that we are not these people, if still mildly unnerved that they are around, or do you evoke a deeper value that will keep me up at night, questioning the limits I inhabit as safe?

This is clean and narrow, there is too much Haneke here and not enough Pasolini or Cassavetes.

Remember Woman Under the Influence? A schizophrenic mother who in the calculating eyes of Welfare would be incompetent to raise children, and yet we see her love and ache, and confused and deathly afraid, and still cutting herself on her broken pieces as she reaches out to love. Marvelous film. But that required patient sculpting in time, an interested eye, ambiguous horizon, wanting to know from the inside.

There is one thing here that I liked. We are not immediately sure just who is who in this family, mother or daughter, father or grandfather. Linked to sex, it creates a powerful tension. We have to search for and define our own limits in this house, then break free of them to examine that self which assumed a narrative: does it change something if the old woman is not the mother? Is the indifference or pain less real?

Too bad. I saw the film at its Greek premiere a few days ago, with the director and cast in attendance. In the ensuing Q&A, no one really questioned the experience of the film for what it presented, at least no one that was comfortable to do so in front of a crowd.

11-year-old girl jumps from the balcony and is killed at her birthday. Why? We finally will find out exactly why she did it, but we have to pass through hell first.

Forget all the cheap scary tricks you know from common horror movies. The threat here is real. There are no surprises, no jump scenes, just constant darkness with a family tyrant as its source. Hopelessness for sure, but in an environment which is quite common.

Greece performs a film wonder at the moment. Dark forces meet the surface and there's no need for the supernatural or lots of splatter and gore. There are worse things than that in daily life.

If I were to rename this film I would call it "behind closed doors", although that's perhaps too much on the nose. Closed doors are a visual leitmotif of the film, creating an atmosphere of increasing anxiety throughout. This psychological thriller should come with multiple content warnings, despite most of its triggering elements being implicit rather than explicitly shown on screen.

A seemingly ordinary and very well-adjusted family (the kinship relations of which are -deliberately- confusing in the first part of the film, until we understand who is who to each other) has to deal with a seemingly unexplained tragic loss of one of its younger members. As we spend more time inside the family home, observing the interactions and dynamics, we grow increasingly uneasy. The clues are everywhere from scene one, but, like in real life sometimes, we treat them with a level of disbelief "could it be...? no way... they're just our nice and polite next door neighbours".

At the technical level, everything works: the performances are all just as understated as the aesthetics of the film require and totally in sync with each other, the photography, the pacing, the editing... I can't find a fault.

Like others have pointed out, the influence of the Greek Weirdwave cinema is present, although the "weirdness" is comparatively rather toned down, with the plainly disturbing elements being dialled up to 11. Let's just say it's not a film you watch if you want to feel better about the world.

Miss Violence was the first film I've seen at this years Vancouver International Film Festival and what a fantastic film it is. There are similarities to Giorgos Lanthimos's films (Dogtooth, Alps) where you spend the first third of the film figuring out the relationships of the characters to each other and the rules of the world they live in. The rest of the film is spent either reveling in either horror or fascination in the world and characters created.

This story is given to you in small pieces which build upon your understanding of who these people are. This in turn makes you a very active film-goer and creates a feeling of investment. When Miss Violence reaches it's climax I could feel the collective sighs from the 200+ people gathered to watch it at the festival.

Be warned though...it is heavy, but so worth it. You'll be talking about it for awhile to come.

An oppressed, obedient and submissive family to the tyranny of the patriarchal European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the indifference of the world and local politicians to the suffering of its innocent population. An interesting idea as a metaphor even if politically and economically innocent, as the future has come to demonstrate.

"Miss Violence" is a Drama movie in which we watch a family living their life with not many interactions with other people and keeping everything that happens inside their house. Everything can be deceiving and what looks like something it can be something else.

I was very surprised by this movie and I found very interesting the way it was presented. The direction which was made by Alexandros Avranas was very good and he presented how what happens inside a house can be very different from what it is presented in the outside world. In addition to this, he presented carefully and with caution some very sensitive subjects. The interpretations of Themis Panou who played as the Father, Eleni Roussinou who played as Eleni and Sissy Toumasi who played as Myrto were very good and captured what their characters needed to say. Finally, I have to say that "Miss Violence" is an interesting drama movie and I recommend you to watch it because every person can learn something from it.

My Rating: 8/10

I cant lie, after watching this movie I literally felt nauseous. The psychological and physical abuse depicted in the film is extremely raw and literal that, personally speaking, I had a hard time to digest afterwards.

I really found disturbing to acknowledge the extent of abuse a parent can inflict to their childern and the indulgence someone can show to their abuser.

I don't believe this is a film for everybody's taste, but I would suggest to give it a try, as such films, as this one, as much as disturbing they can get, as much thought provoking they can be...

One more great film of the Greek weird wave cinema, wichi Yorgos lanthimos is the most successful director. Slow burn tension, disturbing and shocking. Very well constructed narrative.

I believe that a movie like this cannot truly be described. Its background, it setting and the colours used in the movie set itself reflect the bleakness and the very real monster that is within this family. After watching I felt some scenes very much left a mark, reminded of the true horror some people experience day to day, no jumpscares and no ghosts. If you like this type of movie, then give it a shot! But I wouldn't recommend to the average person. Praise to the directors for making this a true horror, bleak yet unnervingly astounding.

This is my second venture into Greek cinema; the first being Dogtooth. Is everyone in that country insane? The concepts are similar in both films which share a controlling father in the lead. This time around, the dad is dancing with his eleven year-old granddaughter when she shortly makes an unexpected and abrupt exit. For the following ninety six minutes we are subjected to four adults and four children behaving very strangely. There is not one light moment and we are witness to an extremely sexually repulsive scene involving a girl and men who are not interested in a loving relationship. The acting is fine, but the actors spend every moment brooding. There is no reason on earth to sit through this tortuous movie.

Sometimes it occurs to me I should be concerned at some of the films that Amazon recommends to me on the basis of my known preferences and this one probably beats them all. It is a very, very good film but I wouldn't truly recommend it to anyone. At least not someone I didn't know very well and could be sure that they could deal with the worryingly believable and atrocious basis of this film. It begins innocuously enough with a daughter's eleventh birthday. And yet wasn't I slightly perturbed at the flat and colourless surroundings, the spooky lack or gaiety, the fact they were dancing to a Leonard Cohen track? And the way the 'father' held his daughter? Almost immediately there is a most dramatic incident and then we are taken back to a measured family routine where everything is under control and we get drawn further into this only seeming innocuous family. There are truly dreadful events represented here and although most of this gradually dawns upon the viewer during the course of the film there are a couple of openly distressing scenes. There is no attempt to set this awful business in the past and we can only guess at how surprising this depiction is to a Greek audience, if indeed it had a theatrical release. People and glass houses and all that so I will say no more other than that maybe we in the UK need such a brave film maker to look further into some of our more murky corners that are, similarly, maybe not too far from home.

I watched this movie after dinner...and then found it difficult to sleep after that. There were scenes that got persisted in the mind. And this is bound to happen with a flawless film like this. I congratulate the directors, producers and all the stars, especially those making up the family. In the end it will make you sensitive to some grave matters after having seen the horrendous affects this might have on the human psyche.

Film's that investigate the underbelly of society are not unusual, however ones that leave an indelible mark upon the viewer are. Miss Violence is one of those films. It's not an easy watch, and it does use cinematic devices that were pioneered by other directors, but this is a truly challenging film that immerses the viewer in a world that we can't help but be both intrigued and repelled by.

Miss Violence distances itself from more run-of-the-mill offerings in this genre, delivering an all too believable world with strong acting performances, ominous silences, and skillful use of the more mundane aspects of domestic life that combine to leave the viewer wanting to know what happens after the titles roll.

"Miss Violence" uses a subtlety and subtlety to treat and expose a perverse theme that opposes human nature, or does it not? this is the theme reflected in the film - although not to the depth we would like - another Greek film that exposes human nature, such as the great "Canine Tooth" or "The Boy Who Eats Alpiste", this new wave in Greek cinema that maybe has been rocked by its economic crises that makes the filmmakers seek inspiration in their own humanity. The script of miss violence keeps the revelation to the last act, and is giving clues in the first two playing with the viewer, instigating it, and that works in some way, because we are looking for clues and solutions, and when we think that an explanation is correct , the director integrates some point in the film that leaves us even more shaken and confused. But the script is intelligent, linear, working with few nuclei and practically a scenario he manages to maintain a high level of psychological suspense. In addition to child abuse, hostility and domestic violence, the film also deals with the loss and prohibition of mourning, it always has that story "So and so do not want you to cry at your funeral" and it is with this dilemma that our characters are not advised to follow, and yes, thank you. The film has a camera that films scene against scene all the time, leaving the camera always completely impartial, as in other films already mentioned, the director does not want to create a villain, he just wants to show what is happening, who chooses the villains are us, the movie also has a good set up even with its slow tempo and a great use of soundtrack. in addition to their range of actors, who are completely incredible, even the younger actors retain a remarkable sadness and melancholy, Alexandros Avranas director of the long, makes his first direction with the right foot and shows that he has talent. Finally, "Miss Violence" really is not a movie for any person, it takes a steel stomach, not for nojeira or gore, but for the context and subcontext present and operant in the work.