Excellent, a Must See

Better Late Then Never

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

I have seen some Italian classics but not this! Many disturbing movies brings about some terrible horror sequence out of the way to show the audience that this is a terrible movie. This movie doesn't have such things. Hats off to the director who made such a script (a strong one). The screenplay is a bit complex and not all can accept the fact that this is a dark gem. If you can understand the screenplay, you wont complaint!I have to give the credits to the lead character all the way! I hardly recognize these actors but once the movie started off, I started traveling with the lead character. This is how a movie should be. The visuals were excellent. They were lovely at some places, haunting at some places, sexy at some but also horror at some. Very good images lifts the essence of the movie to a whole new level. I cant find any mistakes in the screenplay and I have to tell you this is a rare piece - a dark gem out there. Don't miss the experience.Must watch. Highly recommended.

not a false move anywhere in this movie. superb acting/direction. beautifully shot, yet disturbing, troubling, and brutal. a mystery, thriller, love story, but it's not simply about adult love, even though it's present;it has almost mother daughter love. murder, trickery,prostitution, thievery, cruelty, affection. stunning photography, great music, and a plot with believable twists. not a film that cheats the audience with false leads, implausible situations, or idiotic characters. great dialogue, even in the translation. not a car chase, snide, supposedly witty remark in it at all. some scenes are really difficult, but they are short snatches, quickly cut and edited. this one should rank up there with any recent Italian masterpiece.

I was very excited to watch another Tornatore's movie, but after 5 minutes I wanted to ask my money back! I really wasted 10$. The actors were good; this is probably the only thing I liked and allow me to give a "1" as a score. The movie tells the story of Irena, an Ukraine girl, who comes to a small town in North of Italy and works as a janitor in a nice building. She becomes a thief, steeling and making copies of the keys of the apartment of the Adachers, a rich family of jewelers, who lives in the same building. Then she is responsible for the falling of Gina,and replaces her as a maid in the family. The movie is characterized by feedbacks of Irena's past, when she was a prostitute, forced to have children and sell them. Just to the end, we discover the real plan of Irena: living close to Tea, the last child she was forced to have, and apparently was sold and adopted by the Adachers. But the ghosts from Irena's past come back and the story ends in a real drama and in years of prison for Irena. The all story was horrible. First, I'm really tired of seeing another Italian movie showing the story of a foreign from East Europe being a prostitute, a maid and a thief. Come on, Giuseppe, find something better! It looks an "amateur" story, not directed by a famous director as Tornatore, but by young director at his first movie. And don't tell me it was his first thriller: if somebody is not able to direct a thriller, just don't do it. There were good ideas but he just wasted them, and none of them look credible. As the falling of Gina, the old maid of the Adachers, is not credible. The old lady is paralyzed after falling down the stairs, and, just at the end, starts recovering from the accident. Her recovering doesn't make any sense to the story and is left in the air. Then the Mold, an evil character from Irena's past, performed by an excellent Michele Placido, who was killed by a giant scissor that would have killed an elephant, is still alive and comes back in Irena's life. Or the last name of the family that adopted Tea, chosen by the Mold by a name engraved on his necklace. Not to mention that, after Tea's mum died because of Irena, Tea continues to write to Irena while she is in jail and pick her from prison years later. I had the impression Tornatore started the movie without knowing the end and then he just developed it, adding new ideas, but none credible. I really don't understand how actors as Claudia Gerini, Michele Placido, and Margherita Bui decided to appear in this movie. It's really awful and it is far ages from Nuovo Cinema Paradiso and Malena.

This extraordinary Italian psychodrama/crime thriller, with its heavy S/M undercurrent and stylish scenes of sexual torture, is almost a Spaghetti Pink Film. It is not what I expected from the director of "Cinema Paradiso", but, Sweet Jesus!, I was mightily impressed. What we know from the outset about the "Unknown Woman" of the title, played with immense courage by Kseniya Rappoport, is that she's had a life of physical abuse, brutal rape, and shocking exploitation. She's presently engaged in a scheme to hide from her jailers while searching for a a considerable stash of money. After committing a shocking crime, she gains the confidence of a woman whose young daughter she feels connected to. It isn't long before our heroine is schooling the young girl in the art of survival by slamming her head repeatedly to a hardwood floor. It is scenes like the woman's "abuse" of the girl, amongst others, that make "The Unknown Woman" a harrowing experience. I will spare you the film's most exciting and earth-shattering revelations, but rest assured you're in for a a hellish journey. The film's musical score, courtesy of Ennio Morricone, is a masterpiece, and hearkens back to some of the maestro's best giallo scores. The film is heavy on nudity and bloodshed, though, because it is built on such a strong, character-based screenplay, it never becomes an exploitation film. From performances to production design, this is top notch film-making with a bleak, sharp center. I enjoyed every razer-edged minute of it.