Semmelweis

2023 [HUNGARIAN]

Action / Biography / Drama / History

5
IMDb Rating 6.8/10 10 4026 4K

Plot summary

Set in 19th century Vienna, Ignac Semmelweis, a short-tempered but passionate doctor, delivers babies and carries out autopsies on a daily basis while looking for the cause of puerperal fever, the mysterious epidemic that decimates patients in the hospital.

Director

Lajos Koltai Photo
Lajos Koltai

Top cast

Ákos Orosz Photo
Ákos Orosz as Pincér
Károly Hajduk Photo
Károly Hajduk as Blahó
Krisztián Kolovratnik Photo
Krisztián Kolovratnik as Berger
Laurent Winkler Photo
Laurent Winkler as Dr. Osztrak
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB 1080p.WEB
1.14 GB
1280*536
Hungarian 2.0
NR
Subtitles hu   us  
24 fps
2 hr 7 min
Seeds 4
2.35 GB
1920*804
Hungarian 5.1
NR
Subtitles hu   us  
24 fps
2 hr 7 min
Seeds 3
2.13 GB
1920*804
Hungarian 5.1
NR
Subtitles hu   us  
24 fps
2 hr 7 min
Seeds 1

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by totymedli 6 / 10

Important story over dramatized and buried under fiction

The story of Semmelweis is definitely worthy of a movie but this is barely a biography, its more of an "inspired by". They added huge amounts of fiction. If you check what happened in real life, you aren't going to find the stuff that was shown in this movie. The anti Hungarian sentiment, the conspiracy against Semmelweis, the entire (and totally unnecessary) romantic storyline. At the same time we don't see that much of the protagonist's life, the plot revolves around his research and how his colleagues refuse to acknowledge him. The movie does touch on problems like racism, misogyny and politics but it is superficial and as I mentioned, not historically accurate. This would have been way better if they had chose to give a biography similar to Nolan's Oppenheimer, but they went with a mostly fictional plot and what is worse, most of the made up stuff doesn't elevate the interesting nature of the story that much, it just inflates it with clichés.The story is filled with drama but its very artificial. I understand that they wanted to make it watchable but the sacrifices they made were too big. All the scenes (especially the court one) feels so unbelievably "epic" that you almost laugh at it. It's so overdone you can be certain it did not happened that way. They wanted to portray Semmelweis so much as a hero that the scenes feel like the hyperbolic mythical songs they used to sing about the heroic quests of kings.Acting doesn't help either. All the characters are one sided.Semmelweis can't be bothered with anything else than his patients. He constantly preaches about the importance of saving lives, just to make sure everybody gets how big of a hero he is. I don't meant to disrespect or undermine his super important achievements, but the way he is portrayed here, is just exaggerated. It is hard to believe he acted like this. Historical evidence recorded that he was a hard man, which is shown in the movie, but the overdetermined way he constantly acts is nonsense. Miklós H. Vecsei's performance emphasized this. It wasn't bad, but he just strengthened the one sided, unrealistically heroic character by overplaying this perfect martyr fantasy role.Emma Hoffman was mostly there as a love interest but what is worse was Katica Nagy performance. She has literally one emotion: none. Her lifeless speech and character that meant to fuel the unneeded romantic subplot was boring, unenergetic and lacked the slightest passion.Sabina Hoffmann's existence was pure plot fuel and Lilla Kizlinger's mumbling was barely understandable. I get it that they meant to portray siblings living in hardship, but the acting didn't delivered their suffering, just their lack of emotion.Jakob Kolletschka's character was shallow with his singular duty of reminding Semmelweis to hedonistically enjoy life, but at least Ferenc Elek's performance was enjoyable. He delivered in the most enjoyable way.What saves this movie is the picture. Except from the ball scene (which is comically yellow) It is well shot and lit. The setting and the costumes are immersive. Visually it is a quality product. Despite all the negatives, even with this amount of inflation, the story is still watchable, thanks to the interesting nature of the case and probably our national connection. Thanks to this, it deserves a singular watch, but it was disappointing knowing it could have been way better.
Reviewed by qqdkvy 6 / 10

It's the definition of "One time watch"

Since I am highly critical about movies, I didn't expect much from a Modern-, Hungarian-made movie in 2023, knowing the current situation given in the Hungarian Film Industry. But let's not get too political, the movie still exceeded my expectations.The concept of the movie was 'kinda' new for me, although historical movies were made before, they were pretty forgettable, and you wouldn't watch it out of pure curiosity. The storytelling was decent, although it was highly historically inaccurate. Some made-up characters were created to make the story more interesting, but to make Semmelweis's 'wife' a fictional character is terrible. There is no evidence of her being a nurse at the same clinic where Semmelweis had worked at the time. Also, during his time at the Vienna Clinic, the doctors were not divided by nationality, but instead by methodology. Semmelweis and his, mainly younger doctors who represented the newer, more scientific and natural remedies were opposed with the older, more traditional, highly respected doctors, who were also highly viewed by the public, and most patients at the clinic.The scenes were intense, and a good representation of 19th century Austro-Hungarian regime. The acting was decent, although it wasn't perfect, I'd say it made the movie a star better for me.Aside from the awful lot of historical inaccuracies, the technicals weren't great either. The camerawork was not on par with the whole story. The cameraman (in my view, and based on other, similar movies) used the wrong angles, multiple times, even a couple times the focus was not even on the. Sound was completely dull, the dialogues were too subtle, some dialogues, that was meant to be important were too weak.I'd give it a 6, because I gained a bunch of information on Semmelweis's life and his work on medical researches.
Reviewed by muvyfoto 7 / 10

Enjoyable, but too much fiction.

Semmelweis was indeed a admirable historical figure, but the movie has added too much romanticized fantasy to the story up to the point where some people would shout "historical inauthenticity".I understand the need to dramatise the story for the moviegoer audience, but some casting accuracies and factual authenticity wouldn't have hurt the overall enjoyability of the film, but at the same time the struggle of that particular era was really palpable.In general it was a movie to be seen once, but it won't become a cinema classic, but compromises between drama, authenticity and production budget led to this outcome. You should watch it at least once, to see why science is held back by authority.
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