The Third Half (2012)

Directed by: Darko Mitrevski
Country: Macedonia / others

Review: “The Third Half” combines soccer, romance and war in the same package. Having been inspired on true events, it follows a similar approach used by the Serbian “Montevideo, God Bless You” from 2010, and suffers from the same commercial appeal and standardized narrative. Even trying to avoid an evident sentimentalism, the background music is there to remind us its good dramatic intentions. The plot presents three distinct sides. The romantic side is centered on the persistent love between Kosta, the striker of FC Macedonia, and Rebecca Cohen, the daughter of a rich Jewish banker. The sportive side is completely sunk in misrepresentation of the real facts; contradicting the movie, FC Macedonia didn’t win the final game against Bulgarian team Levski and was placed in second. The war side dealt with the German occupancy and should have represented the strongest aspect in the story; it gave particular emphasis on Spitz, the coach of the team, who didn’t escape to Nazis in the circumstances described here and wasn't German but rather Hungarian. In my point of view the plot didn’t gained anything by manipulating the real story, which just served to increase speculation. Considering the adopted approach, and polemics aside, “The Third Half” as cinematic experience just revealed a huge ambition and the inability to stir emotions or create much enthusiasm.