Rent Western (2017)

If you feel in need of a slow, well acted, but not much at all happens, narrative... - Western review by CP Customer

I'd read some very positive reviews of this in the media and it is a very well-acted film that conveys a real sense of authenticity

in depicting cultural tensions between a group of German workers and Bulgarian locals. It is slow, though, very, very, very slow, and while that helps in building a sense of just-below-the-surface tension this tests boredom thresholds and I'm afraid broke mine into little pieces.

Quiet Standoff - Western review by griggs

Give this one credit — the title’s pulling double duty, nodding to the genre while pointing east on the map. That feels deliberate.

A crew of German construction workers turn up in rural Bulgaria to build a hydroelectric plant, then start acting like the new sheriffs in town. Grisebach clearly knows her Westerns — there’s a horse, a standoff over water rights, a fella riding into a one-horse village — though the guns stay mostly in their holsters. She sends migrant labour east for once, then lets it collide with local suspicion. It also brings to mind the anxieties about eastern European workers weaponised during the Brexit campaign, when migrant labour became a convenient scapegoat. The film makes that old argument travel in the opposite direction.

Meinhard Neumann, in his first acting role, carries the whole thing on one unreadable, weathered face. He’s closer to James Stewart than Clint Eastwood: a soft-spoken man trying to earn his place one awkward ride, poker hand and village encounter at a time. His face does most of the talking.

Tension builds through small stuff — a borrowed horse, a stolen flag, missing water, bruised male pride. Every minor slight starts wearing a gun belt.

The pace is more dusty trail than runaway stagecoach, and the ending leaves a few threads dangling in the wind. Still, I’d happily sit through another two hours of these people just talking. A quiet standoff of a film, with plenty of frontier spirit and mostly a winning hand.

Authentic and skillfully made - Western review by ZS

The film is well made and conveys many messages.It is not for viewers who expect a lot of action .The life in a small Bulgarian village is depicted very authentically .The Slavic soul( social and psychological aspects) is revealed in a realistic and natural way.

beautiful film, don't understand the title - Western review by tezza

A slow-moving lyrical film about incomprehension and human understanding. A lonely, rather lost German builder falls in love with a remote Bulgarian village. There's plenty of plot along the way, but it never turns out how you'd expect. Highly intelligent, Chekhovian even.