"Marwencol," which I have not seen yet. By different, I don't mean in the basic conflict --- bullies attack an underdog which turns out to be a hate crime outside a bar. It isn't even different that the victim survives, just barely. It's different in how he puts up a fight to make sure he can move forward in his life and not let the bullies destroy his essence. The way he figures out is to build a world with bad guys (who are nazis) and women saviors. These characters are dolls in this world and they come alive quite often in the film --- As much as I enjoyed seeing the women take the reigns in saving the soldier, their segments are violent most of the time, and that I didn't appreciate nor did I appreciate the amount of film time showing the violence over and over; Mr. Hogencamp gives the impression that he does these reenactments daily, after his work at a small local diner . When he meets Nicol, his new neighbor, life seems to change a bit --- we know this because he almost immediately introduces a Nicol doll that his Colonel Hogencamp takes a shine to. And that's when the film gets much better. This film is in the hands of a well-known director (Bob Zemeckis who also directed "Back to the Future " trilogy and a lot more very fine films) , so we expect northing less from him --- the film is pretty, the dolls come to life (with some amazing scenes there), and the film is well-acted, of course. I was emotionally pulled into the film whenever Mark is painfully living his day to day life --- but then the film loses me when the toys come to life --- once you've seen one of these vignettes, to me , you've seen them all --- they seem repetitive and there are too many of them, in my opinion. I also wish there was more clarity in movement from one to the next --- that is, that the film has a reason for the vignettes. If the reasoning is there, I missed it and I apologize, but I really didn't see a lot of thought behind each one --- it was almost like watching the director playing with the dolls --- "Look what I can do with these neat dolls" and even though it IS a neat way for Mark to work out his problems, I just wanted some more poignancy with those scenes. There were many times that Mark was asked why he does what he does and his answer is "I don't know" --- I believe that, but I guess I just wanted more info here on how his mind might be working....That's my one criticism; however, by the end of the film , it ends up to be very inspiring and a tribute to Mark's strength to get to where we leave him by the end of the film. And it shows the consequences of a hate crime, and how someone chose to fight back. I'd give this 4 stars out of 5.
This affecting drama chronicles the real-life story of Mark Hogancamp, who loses his memory after a savage assault but works through recovery by building a miniature World War II-era town filled with figurines representing his loved ones.
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