Rating: 
Summary: off beat & fascinating
Review: one of the most unusual and interesting films i've seen in a long time. all of the acting is great.
Rating:
Summary: How To Avoid A Crush On Your Sibling
Review: The Cement Garden was different from any other movie I've ever seen. The courageousness of the brothers and sisters was inspiring, and I can understand why the oldest brother and sister did what they did. They had only each other to lean on, not to mention the responsibility of taking care of two younger siblings. What would a family do under such circumstances? It is hard to understand,but you had to feel compassion, because after all, they now had to take on the role of parents and providers. Some may find this film offensive, but I would say to them, Keep an open mind.
Rating: 
Summary: The film itself is what really matters.
Review: The DVD version was transferred from a tape rather than from a film print; tell by the image quality. There isn't much behind the scene stuff either besides a few slides of texts.
Still, I gave a 5 stars rating because not many films can pull off controversial topics like "The Cement Garden." I bought the DVD because I loved the film so, and that's all it matters.
For art film lovers, it might be worth collecting.
Rating:
Summary: The film itself is what really matters.
Review: The DVD version was transferred from a tape rather than from a film print; tell by the image quality. There isn't much behind the scene stuff either besides a few slides of texts.
Still, I gave a 5 stars rating because not many films can pull off controversial topics like "The Cement Garden." I bought the DVD because I loved the film so, and that's all it matters.
For art film lovers, it might be worth collecting.
Rating: 
Summary: Picture quality is bad.
Review: There are many reasons I wanted to get this movie, and many reasons I was dissapointed. I am studying french and am a fan of Charlotte Gainsbourg, so I picked this up. This movie is in engligh, not french, so those who want a french movie will be dissapointed.
The biggest problem with this DVD is the picture quality is bad. The picture is more like a VHS tape than a DVD. There was grain in the picture, and it was not clear or sharp at times. It is not as bad as Fox Lieber, but for a DVD I expect great picture quality.
The third reason I would suggest people pass on this movie is the story is not that interesting. It did not hold my interest. As much as I like Charlotte Gainsbourg and would love to add more of her movies to my DVD collection, this movie is not on par with her other works.
Rating:
Summary: quality of reality is been revealed in this brits films
Review: there are some stories based as true from this brittish movies.this movie is shocking and the way it disturbs may take you for a while to try and understand why(can this happen in real life?)this is one and the same acting you watch in (the war zone,the snapper and eye of the needle)i am a fan of every movie with good acting all over the world,but this brittish movies does really hypnotise you slowly until what can sometimes happen in real life is revealed.the cement garden is one of those films which has this aunthentic and even compelling dark stories.even here in africa where i belong(there are most shocking stories of incest taboo)but this one was well depicted in its genre.i think is watchable on dvd.
Rating:
Summary: It¿s a family affair
Review: There's an almost heroic honesty to this urbanized, co-ed "Lord of the Flies"-ish love story. A square stone house serves as the isolated island while the jungle is the familiar setting of urban sprawl and other people. Director Andrew Birkin, in adapting Ian McEwan's novel (The Comfort of Strangers) to the screen, doesn't try to shock us. He just ignores our prejudices and lets fall away our preconceptions. What emerges is a sense of liberation from the usual hypocrisy.The love story is an acting out of sister-brother incest, almost a celebration of it. "Seems natural to me" is what fifteen-year-old Jack (Andrew Robertson) says while in the naked embrace of his older sister Julie (Charlotte Gainsbourg). I could almost buy it, but I know of the "kibbutz effect" in which it was found that unrelated children growing up together virtually never married one another. If sister and brother grow up separately there can be sexual excitement between them, but if they grow up in the same household they tend to find each other sexually boring. Family members usually work out the sexual tension through play at an early age so that by the time they are sexually mature, they are looking elsewhere. That's how the incest taboo works. Its purpose is to channel the sexual drive outward, the better to mix the gene pool. For the individual, incest is not an attractive option socially or economically because it is so much better to increase one's family and influence by joining with someone from another tribe or band. If you marry your sister, you don't gain any brothers. Consequently the average person recoils (or at least pretends to) at the mere suggestion of incest, and it is this mindless, knee jerk reaction that this film attacks. Consider isolated families in the pre-history. What other reproductive choice would they have? Certainly it is better to reproduce in the hope that the next generation might find partners. This evolutionary wisdom is what is captured here. The sexual drive is seen as stronger than society's ephemeral prejudices, and rightly so since our genes must survive even when the society is stupid and self-destructive in its mores. Birkin's direction lacks focus in the beginning and the editing seems brilliant and disjointed by turns, but Birkin eschews even the hint of a cliché and ends up with a slightly flawed, but engrossing, strikingly original work of cinematic art. I'm disappointed that the sound track did not include the seventies Motown tune, "It's a Family Affair."
Rating: 
Summary: Cement casket in the garden
Review: This was a terribly dark film. I couln't watch the whole thing. If I had, I would have contempated suicide. Not recommended.
Rating:
Summary: incest is best
Review: With "The Cement Garden," Andrew Birkin has created a spare, atmospheric and erotic cinematic adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel of the same name. This tale of grieving and incest is artfully shot and strangely compelling. A fateful attraction develops between Jack and Julie, the oldests of four siblings, following the death of their father and shortly thereafter of their mother. For fear that their younger brother and sister will have to go to an orphanage (in much the same vein as Jacques Fansten's "Cross My Heart"), the two bury their mother's body in a vat of cement in the cellar and proceed to take on their parents roles. While Sue, the youngest sister, deals with her pain through writing, and Tom (the younger brother, played by the director's son) begins dressing in girl's clothing, the tension between Jack and Julie builds toward an inevitable and highly anticipated climax. The film is slow-moving but hypnotic, and masterful in its poetic use of landscape. A few semi-significant inconsistencies aside, "The Cement Garden" succeeds in immersing you in its world. I especially enjoyed Charlotte Gainsbourg's performance as Julie. I would give it 4 and 1/2 stars if I could.
Rating:
Summary: incest is best
Review: With "The Cement Garden," Andrew Birkin has created a spare, atmospheric and erotic cinematic adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel of the same name. This tale of grieving and incest is artfully shot and strangely compelling. A fateful attraction develops between Jack and Julie, the oldests of four siblings, following the death of their father and shortly thereafter of their mother. For fear that their younger brother and sister will have to go to an orphanage (in much the same vein as Jacques Fansten's "Cross My Heart"), the two bury their mother's body in a vat of cement in the cellar and proceed to take on their parents roles. While Sue, the youngest sister, deals with her pain through writing, and Tom (the younger brother, played by the director's son) begins dressing in girl's clothing, the tension between Jack and Julie builds toward an inevitable and highly anticipated climax. The film is slow-moving but hypnotic, and masterful in its poetic use of landscape. A few semi-significant inconsistencies aside, "The Cement Garden" succeeds in immersing you in its world. I especially enjoyed Charlotte Gainsbourg's performance as Julie. I would give it 4 and 1/2 stars if I could.
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