Ciao 2008

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Deeply sincere and exceedingly slow even at 87 minutes, Ciao involves two strangers who become acquaintances after the death of a mutual friend. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: It's made on the smallest of budgets and features awkward if sincere performances, yet Yen Tan's film still manages to strike a series of plangent emotional truths about speaking one's heart and moving on. Read more

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: Yen Tan's Ciao is a revelation, a minimalist work of maximum effect. It is determinedly understated and consistently expressive, beautifully composed yet never studied. Read more

V.A. Musetto, New York Post: The story is so minimal that it almost doesn't exist. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: In Yen Tan's glacially paced movie (every shot is relentlessly symmetrical), the actors are squares in graph-paper compositions. Read more

Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: Ciao moves at a snail's pace. It feels long even at its abbreviated length. Read more

Anna King, Time Out: It's hard to shake the feeling that the onscreen words stick too close to the facts: The dialogue drags, making the viewer like an invisible third wheel at a nervous, slightly dull first date. Read more

Ronnie Scheib, Variety: Helmer/co-scripter Tan conceives of his two characters as complementing each other within a minor key. Read more

Ed Gonzalez, Village Voice: The film's calculatingly minimalist style is in many ways as affected as all the gay Amerindie films at which writer-director Yen Tan snottily thumbs his nose. Read more