Detropia 2012

David Lewis, San Francisco Chronicle: Artfully - perhaps too artfully - illustrates the transformation of the Motor City from a middle-class utopia to an urban nightmare of blight, crime and fleeing residents. Read more

Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times: Moving from union hall to town hall, from brutal salary negotiations to contentious plans to create urban farms out of concrete wasteland, the film listens and moves on. Read more

Tom Keogh, Seattle Times: A startling, haunting documentary about a once-great city, "Detropia" is all but a eulogy for Detroit. Read more

Sam Adams, AV Club: At times, as Ewing and Grady's cameras prowl its empty streets, the city seems like the world's largest ghost town. Read more

Barbara VanDenburgh, Arizona Republic: A fascinating portrait of a 21st-century post-industrial hellscape. Read more

Mark Feeney, Boston Globe: "Detropia" feels somewhere between loose (which is good) and aimless (which isn't). Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: The movie is heavy on statistics (all of them grim), yet what lingers is an operatic sense of tragedy. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: "Detropia" offers up a mirror to the country: This is what the future may look like. Now, what do you want to do about it? Read more

John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter: Doc about Detroit's state of abandonment offers snapshots and sounds but little new information. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: City services are shutting down, schools are closing, houses are being demo'd by the thousands - like lights being turned out one by one, "Detropia" powerfully captures a city fighting not to go dark. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: Just as the film finds an aesthetic in its dilapidated setting, the city's residents find hope in a desperate place, a place that once represented hope itself. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: This documentary film, about the deconstruction of a great American city, is surprisingly lyrical and often very moving. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: What the movie captures overall looks like a scene from a sci-fi, postapocalyptic nightmare. Read more

Inga Saffron, Philadelphia Inquirer: Detropia's filmmakers stay out of the picture, hanging back to allow the viewer to absorb the meaning of Detroit's fate. It is even more complex than we thought. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Via beautiful cinematography, the film wanders the city, contrasting a new automaker's towers with abandoned hotels, derelict theaters, ruined houses and people walking through the snow down the middle of streets because there's no traffic. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, Oscar-nominated for their earlier Jesus Camp, aim a compassionate and artful lens in their new documentary Detropia, finding signs of life in the ruined city. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: Imagine if Frederick Wiseman and David Lynch had a bastard child, and you'll get a sense of the movie's off-kilter aesthetic, a potent and pointed mix of firsthand observation and surreal flights of fancy. Read more

Dennis Harvey, Variety: A potent snapshot of a potential future for many American cities. Read more

Karina Longworth, Village Voice: Beautifully composed and purposefully edited to a haunting electronic score ... Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Grady and Ewing are exceptionally skilled and sensitive visual storytellers, adroit at recognizing decisive moments and smart enough to let viewers make of them what they will. Read more