Adventurous, funny, thrilling and shocking! This is the second film I’ve seen from this director, following a lovely dramedy about child custody called 'Everybody in Our Family'. This was quite different, a historical story set two centuries before the present day. It's a black-and-white movie that fits perfectly with the feel of the storytelling. Romania submitted it for the 2016 Oscars. I haven’t seen every foreign film nominee, but having watched films like this one and Brazil’s 'The Second Mother', which weren’t competing, they are considerably better than the actual contender, 'A War'. I almost decided not to write a review after seeing the trailer and synopsis, despite good ratings and praise from critics. I thought it would be boring, so I was just planning to get it over with. But like they say, you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, and that’s exactly what happened here. Watching it made me realize how wrong the Academy Awards were to overlook it. In fact, it’s one of the best foreign films I’ve seen in the last six months or so. > "When a wise man opens his mouth, open your ear." They may have had good reasons for that, which I don't know, but my guess is the film's ending. The beginning was slow, and the dialogue was loud—sometimes foolishly funny, sometimes wisely humorous. You really need to pay attention to appreciate the jokes. It’s definitely a wonderful adventure; like other man-hunt films, it takes this aspect very seriously, but viewers won't realize that until the final scene. The music is well-placed throughout, helping to tell an incredible story about two men on a mission who encounter different people, landscapes, cultures and languages. It’s 1835 in Wallachia, Eastern Europe; a father and son working as police officers are tracking down a runaway slave. They have to go beyond their usual area to find him. Along the way, they end up helping others, and vice versa. After an intense search, they catch him in a remote location, but his explanation for fleeing differs. What follows is the final act and a very shocking conclusion. > "Fear is shameful, but healthy. It’s God's gift." I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as I did, mainly because it was funnier than I thought. I also felt uncomfortable with the slavery theme; it started to bother me and make it hard to relax. But that’s how things were in the old world, based on historical documents and accounts of real events. After that horrifying finale, the father's statement to his son—"God even looks after worms, and we can’t look after each other"—made me think about how far we’ve come, yet whether anything has really changed. And you know the answer to that. The plot isn’t unusual; I’ve seen hundreds of similar films. But it's from a different country, so the language, culture, humor, landscapes and outcome are all different. The film shifts moods at various points in the storytelling. It successfully blends several genres and delivers more than you expect. If you were curious about the meaning of the title, 'Well Done' or 'Bravo' is the English translation. It looks like a low-budget movie, but that’s part of what makes it so interesting. The 19th-century story and the film’s feel—like it was made in the early 30s (except for the higher frame rate)—are unlike most modern black-and-white films. It's definitely worth seeing if you were interested in this year’s Oscar nominees for best foreign movies, even though it didn't win. 8½/10

Source on TMDB