I increasingly find myself tending to veer away from the more commercial mainstream cinema in an effort to find films which have a story to tell. Catherine Deneuve's comments at this year's `Mostra' are still ringing in my ears – i.e. she complained of Hollywood cinema being dominated by special effects and hardly any story to go along with. I heartily agree; thus it was with expectancy I watched the Austrian-German production of `Die Siebtelbauern'. On the whole I would say the result was satisfying – perhaps not great cinema, but at least an interesting tale unfolds in an atypical circumstance. The fable leaves you with some philosophical points to ponder.Seven workers on a farm, including even illiterates among them, inherit the farm the rich landowner leaves them at his death. Happy-go-lucky simple peasants begin to have problems in life, which previously they had never had, both among themselves and with other landed gentry of the district.Considering that many of those taking part in the film are not really professional actors anyway, one should allow certain weaknesses to be overlooked: the story is intriguing, the photography is wonderful, and I at last find an anchor-base from which to be able to comprehend Erik Satie's music with an element of background reality, however allegorical it may be.Well worth a watch, especially if you are not expecting highly-polished glamorous film-making; on the other hand, I would more highly recommend the Italian film `L'Albero degli Zoccoli' (1978) directed by Ermanno Olmi: a poetic rural tale with genuine amateur actors – an exceptional film.

This film is not about an idealized, bucolic, peaceful country life. Rather it portrays the harsh reality of the feudal system that continued n Europe until well into the 20'th century. Peasants were considered "uppity" if they dared to believe they could be the equal of Farmers, and women were so victimized that a woman reporting her violent rape could be sent to prison for having the audacity to accuse her employer of a crime. In fact, European peasants were in many ways as ill treated as the slaves of the Deep South. I enjoyed this film for its cultural realism and historical value, but the story is quite depressing. I rate it a 7.

I really don't know why there are all those brilliant reviews in so many respected papers and magazines. This was a hell of a deception to me, an utterly boring (cinematography & story) display of cardboard characters played by wooden actors, esp. the highly credited Sophie Rois delivers an exceptionally bad performance. Too much of an artificial appeal to be realistic, too pretentious to be funny, too silly to be taken seriously: so the film doesn't even make it to be a "good bad movie". Not amused.

I guess it's a measure of how effectively placed the class-war business of Austria's "The Inheritors" is, since so many people seem to think it takes place in the 19th century. Actually, the film is set in the early 1930s, with the shadow of the coming storm of Nazism and WWII ready to obliterate everything we're seeing, anyway.