Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Nihil In my opinion Simshar was a very good film. At first it seemed like the film was a little Americanized but it was proved wrong at the end. The film seemed a little Americanized at first because the little boy was going to work with his dad for a couple weeks on the boat. One thing that I did not like about this film was the boat catching on fire even though it was a key part of this film. I did not like this part because three people die from this one action or act. I do not even know how the fire started it seemed as if the boat was off to me but i guess it was not because it could not catch on fire if the boat was off. The fire was probably caused by a electrical problem. I think I saw them grab a fire extinguisher. Why did that not work? Was this realistic? Would they have been able to get the fire to stop if this was reel life? I believe so, I know the film was based on a true story but the fire extinguisher not being able to put the fire out actually makes no sense. Then they tried to get salt water from the ocean to put it out and that does not work either which makes no sense to me. Also if the soldier did not stop or delay the other fishermen search for Simshar then I believe they would have found the dad and son easier and the son would have got to live. Why does the soldier end up getting in trouble for letting the other fishermen look for him? they ended up saving one of their lives.

magonzalez-15762 I thought that Simshar was a very touching and emotional film. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I found it interesting about the background summary that they gave. The film seemed to have two different stories, one about the Simshar, and another about a merchant vessel that has stopped to rescue some migrants (I believe it was the Pinar E, but it could have had a fake name). The Simshar sinks, leading to the death of four out of the five members on board. There were some parts of the story that I did not understand however. For instance, why did the crew not fix their ship? They obviously knew that there was a problem, since they had to put out a fire a few days earlier. Is it because they could not afford the parts to fix the ship? And why was there such a hostility towards the refugees? There wasn't a great deal of logic behind their hatred, but when has there ever?

Pablo This was a very nice film for me to watch, surprisingly. Since I've never really heard anything ever about Malta, it was cool and new to see a film where it took place in. I also like how it wasn't a touristy vacation movie, it was a serious film that was very similar to a documentary. It gave me a very on depth view of what Malta was like and how the country is doing. Some things I liked about the movie were the camera angles. I felt like the directors really went the extra mile in that aspect. I really liked how when the boat exploded, the camera was underwater and you saw the explosion from underneath the surface, and then the dad dove in the water. I also liked the scene where the camera was facing the junk raft and the survivors from underwater as the turtle swam by. Another cool angle was the scene where it was raining and the camera was facing down at Theo and his dad as they were trying to catch the water. There were a lot of sad scenes also though, something I'm not really a fan of. For example, the scene where Musa died, the scene where Theo and his dad were trying to catch the rain, and the scene where they find Simon, but he can't find Theo, and then the camera goes to the underwater shot of his body sinking.

Lily Schneider The 2014 film called, "Simshar," inspired by true events, and directed by Rebecca Cremona, is a slow paced, yet somehow exhilarating film concerning the tragedies of Simshar -- the boat and the people on board. This film, although somewhat slow and tedious, kept me on the edge of my seat to see what would happen next. There were many obstacles the main characters faced that caused me to be frustrated for them because they were in such tough situations on the water. Many global perspectives can be inferred and taken from the film in different ways. For instance, when the main characters (including the father, his son, and the father's friend) were hanging on for their lives on one raft in the ocean, they were seeking for help, obviously. However, when the father's friend was waving his hands for help when a big ship went by, the ship decided to keep moving along because of the color of the father's friend's skin. This was interesting and somewhat shocking to me -- to see the line drawn out between immigrants and other people within a country. This intrigued me, and it set a new global perspective out for me.