Critic Reviews

• Cath Clarke, Time Out

  A meditation on death and sex, it's a melancholy and touchingly profound folk tale, though also deeply weird in places - pagan vajazzling, anyone?

• Ty Burr, Boston Globe

  It's lovely and slow and melancholic and short - 75 minutes, yet you feel you've been gone for an epoch or two.

• David Lewis, San Francisco Chronicle

  An astonishing, haunting, sensual, lyrical, bleak and ultimately beautiful road-trip movie.

• Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader

  Rife with earthy details and poetic associations, the movie often advances like a daydream.

• Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

  This profound and immensely touching film in only 75 perfect minutes achieves the profundity of an epic.

• Stephanie Merry, Washington Post

  The Russian drama unfolds as a series of perplexing, fascinating snapshots, yet the predominant story about saying goodbye - to people and customs - are universal.

• Sean Axmaker, Turner Classic Movies Online

  ... slow and introspective, paced in long, still shots that seem to drift in time rather than march forward.

• Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

  Overwhelms us with meaningful silence.

• Jim Schembri, 3AW

  Shot in a series of long single takes in the remote reaches of a chilly landscape the film evokes how the acceptance of loss can bring a sense of peace.

• Mark Kermode, Observer [UK]

  Full of striking visual images and fragmentary half-truths - a dour meditation on love and death that arrests and alienates in equal measure.

• Tara Brady, Irish Times

  The performances are pitch perfect. The culture is fascinating. See it. See it. See it.

• Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph

  Aleksei Fedorchenko's crisp, beautiful film ponders the oddness and necessity of the folk rites in which we all seek solace.

• Allan Hunter, Daily Express

  It is an odd, low-key film but the brief running time ensures that it never overstays its welcome.

• Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK]

  Fedorchenko may not exactly be on oath with all of these Meryan traditions of his, but they create an utterly distinctive world, and the close harmony provided by a choir in one scene really is arresting.

• Shaun Munro, What Culture

  A disarming tableau about life, love and death, Aleksei Fedorchenko's lyrical drama is soup for the soul.

• Nigel Andrews, Financial Times

  The wheels within wheels of sly tale-spinning turn quietly, turn deep.

• Laurence Boyce, Little White Lies

  An incredibly moving and masterfully controlled experience.

• David Parkinson, Empire Magazine

  A beautiful piece of work: heart-wrending, atmospheric and truly poignant. Recommended.

• Miles Fielder, The List

  Beguiling, dreamy and mystifying. And quite unlike anything else. An unexpected cinematic treat.

• Simon Kinnear, Total Film

  There's nothing here Andrei Tarkovsky didn't achieve in his prime, but at a mere 78 minutes it maintains focus with admirable purity.

Read all 25 critic reviews