Attenberg (2012)

Critic Reviews

• Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle

  Tsangari's art-house minimalism, which never lets us forget we're watching a movie, still permits a surprising degree of tender emotion.

• Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times

  Using occasional song-and-dance numbers with a melancholy Godardian kick, [Tsangari] creates a world that's off-center and alive with loneliness.

• Stephanie Merry, Washington Post

  Part of the film's success comes from Labed's performance as Marina, who infuses all that weirdness with a barely there vulnerability.

• A.O. Scott, New York Times

  "Attenberg" is a three-layered love story, anatomizing the mysterious emotions of grief, friendship and erotic attraction.

• Karina Longworth, Village Voice

  A cracked coming-of-age tale set in a fading Greek seaside town.

• Anthony Lane, New Yorker

  In that isolation, and in the marooned hopelessness of the protagonists, there is a hint that normal life may have become too much to cope with, and that its rules of engagement need to be learned afresh.

• Kelly Vance, East Bay Express

  The face of actress Ariane Labed lifts this quiet, dour character study by filmmaker Athina Rachel Tsangari.

• Annlee Ellingson, Paste Magazine

  Attenberg gets down in the emotional muck where life, death and sex intertwine. And like those life experiences, watching it can be both awkward and poignant.

• Chris Cabin, Filmcritic.com

  Perpetually off-balance and maybe just a little too satisfied with its cynicism

• Scott Tobias, AV Club

  The drama, at its core, is simple and conventional, but it has the aura of science fiction.

• Eric Hynes, Time Out New York

  Tsangari distinguishes herself from her predecessor's freak-show formalism with an underlying humanism and freewheeling playfulness.

• Marty Mapes, Movie Habit

  Sex, death, and an absurdist style come together in Greek film

• Philip French, Observer [UK]

  The underlying idea is that life goes on whatever we do, that human beings are merely part (and not the most important one) of a larger ecological system involving the mineral, vegetable and animal world.

• Anthony Quinn, Independent

  Perhaps viewed under the influence of drugs or drink the film might spring to comic life, but taken straight it is far more likely to get on your nerves.

• Matthew Turner, ViewLondon

  Impressively directed and superbly acted, Attenberg plays like a light-hearted, quirky version of Dogtooth, though its relative lack of plot means that it's difficult to engage with the characters on an emotional level.

• Derek Malcolm, This is London

  Fans of Dogtooth should certainly try this one out.

• Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK]

  It offers its audience a mordant commentary on modern Greece - deriding its cultural and social decay, though without commenting directly on economic difficulties - and affects a serio-comic, quasi-anthropological detachment.

• Sukhdev Sandhu, Daily Telegraph

  Attenberg, both jarring and sweet, stuttering and eloquent, doesn't deliver manifestos or offer answers. But, in its needling, idiosyncratic fashion, it's more fascinating than most films that do.

• Lucian Robinson, Financial Times

  If you stay, hope to be charmed. But be warned: you could be exasperated first by the servings of self-regard and psycho-spiritual preciosity.

Read all 19 critic reviews