Critic Reviews

• Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic

  The film is finally only an enjoyable tour, almost devoid of the book's resonances.

• Farran Smith Nehme, New York Post

  Sometimes the scenery is breathtaking, but more often the narration lends the landscape an interest it wouldn't otherwise have.

• Tom Keogh, Seattle Times

  A visionary composition on a series of spoken reflections about a literary work - itself full of layered free-association - Gee's intricate, prismatic film might sound as if it must be buried in abstraction.

• A.O. Scott, New York Times

  Curious souls new to this writer will discover a useful introduction (including passages from "The Rings of Saturn," read by the actor Jonathan Pryce) and a handy map.

• Michelle Orange, Village Voice

  Retraces Sebald's steps, reuniting the novel's descriptions of actual places and spaces with their images and weaving in illuminating commentary from admirers (Rick Moody, Robert McFarlane).

• Ronnie Scheib, Variety

  This deconstructive pic never wields Sebald's subversive power but follows evocatively in his wake.

• Noel Murray, AV Club

  In a way, Patience is a lot like how one of its interview subjects describes an attempt to do Sebald's walk: He says he could retrace the steps, but not the experiences, or the revelations.

• Eric Monder, Film Journal International

  A fresh, strange, downbeat new entry to the "nonfiction art film" genre.

• Kenji Fujishima, Slant Magazine

  A wide-ranging piece of literary criticism brought to vivid cinematic life, bursting with ideas and inspired visual translations of them.

• Philip French, Observer [UK]

  Grant Gee's film should make anyone want to read The Rings of Saturn and the rest of Sebald's relatively small but exquisite oeuvre, some eight or nine books in all.

• , This is London

  Gee, who made the award-winning Joy Division, conducts his quiet study with considerable skill...

• Xan Brooks, Guardian [UK]

  In keeping with the spirit of Sebald's writing, Gee's film is teasing, elegant and perhaps inevitably unresolved: an invitation as opposed to a destination.

• Nigel Andrews, Financial Times

  Grant Gee's documentary is very winning.

• David Jenkins, Little White Lies

  If you haven't read the book, you'll want to. If you have read the book, you'll want to read it again.

• Ian Nathan, Empire Magazine

  With so many films adapted from novels, it's nice to see cinema paying homage to unheralded greats of literature like Sebald.

• Sam Wigley, Total Film

  As Jonathan Pryce reads passages and academic voices take turns to chew over Sebald's visionary opus, B&W footage of country roadsides and wind-blasted coastlines turns rural Suffolk into something truly otherworldly.

Read all 16 critic reviews