"Ink" is a sample of what a real movie should be. How nice among the heap of empty blockbusters, cold cinema satire and author’s decadent delights sometimes stumble upon such a film. The beginning of the film does not promise anything good. First, you immediately notice that the budget of the picture is meager: cheap scenery is noticeable, the change of incomprehensible scenes cuts the eye, the “hand-held” camera irritates you, staged fights between strange characters cause a smirk, and “authorly” prolonged unclear scenes cause a desire to rewind them forward.
You begin to suspect that you have come across another cheap author’s film with a lot of claims and a vague meaning, designed to give the impression of the depth of the author’s ideas. Actually, this is a really cheap author's film, but after watching "Ink" for half an hour, you completely forget your first impressions and completely immerse yourself in the world on the screen - you empathize with the characters, you watch the development of the plot with interest and you can no longer take your eyes off the screen.
And you already think that's how movies should be. With good, but not intrusive music, with decent meaning and morality, but without moralizing and detached sarcasm. And most importantly, the film makes you empathize, which is not so often happens when watching, on the one hand, banal stamped blockbusters and, on the other hand, pretentious and cold author / director's film. This ability to make you empathize with the characters and not lose the fun and depth of ideas and distinguishes “Ink” from a number of films that pass without a trace of gray mass (and bring the creator their only value – the mass of “green”) through cinemas and TV screens and computers.
Of course, there are drawbacks - in addition to the scant budget read in the scenery and makeup, these are the predicted plot moves and "battle scenes", although they can probably be attributed to the conscious desire of the director to add certain genre clichés for the fascinating plot and melodramatism. In my opinion, these shortcomings could have been avoided, but even with them the film does not lose much.
After all, in the center, outside of these clichés and plot moves, there is a person with his moral choice, ready to make a decision and determine life priorities. It can be influenced by circumstances, angels and demons (it is impossible not to mention the original image of the incubus), but the only one who actually decides and determines his appearance and the fate of his loved ones is the person himself. And it is doubly good if someone wise and kind will stand by and show that it depends on your decisions and tell you that these decisions are only yours.
“Ink” is a sample of what a real movie should be, and in general, any work that claims to be real. It is the “presentity”, the sincerity of the narrative, that catches in it. And if the movie catches, then it is a good movie.
9 out of 10