Le quattro volte 2010

A.O. Scott, New York Times: So full of surprises - nearly every shot contains a revelation, sneaky or overt, cosmic or mundane - that even to describe it is to risk giving something away. Read more

Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times: Becomes a transcendent experience that demands the viewer's attentive participation as it miraculously straddles the line between the orchestrated epiphanies of fiction and the simple, unadorned reality of documentary. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: Frammartino uses long, carefully observed takes to capture the natural world and the way the same patterns keep erupting from beneath humanity's attempts to impose order upon it. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Few movies are this patient with us, even if not enough moviegoers will be as patient with it. Their loss. Read more

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: Perched between fiction and documentary, "Le Quattro Volte" is above all a beautiful and profound evocation of the eternal cycles of life and nature. Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: The complexities of ordinary life don't fit into Frammartino's picture-postcard pieties; his sincere but diffuse spirituality is the cinematic equivalent of New Age music. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: I drifted pleasantly in its depths. Read more

Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle: Le Quattro Volte may sound like art-house tedium, but in fact it's a movie of grave beauty, serene pace and surprising humor. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: If Samuel Beckett and Jacques Tati collaborated on a National Geographic nature film, the result would be a lot like this oddball Italian docudrama. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The God's-eye view becomes mesmerizing when we stop insisting that the film flatter us and just enjoy a quiet ride on the cycle. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Give Le Quattro Volte the patience it deserves, and you will be captivated by its stately rhythms, transfixed by its strange imagery, and moved by its sudden dramas. Don't, and you'll be bored to tears. Read more

Trevor Johnston, Time Out: Explaining it makes it sound aridly abstract, but watching it is pure delight... Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: If Dante hadn't already made classic use of the title, Michelangelo Frammartino's Le Quattro Volte could instead have been called The Divine Comedy. Read more

Jay Weissberg, Variety: Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: Grave, beautiful, austerely comic, and casually metempsychotic, Michelangelo Frammartino's Le Quattro Volte is one of the wiggiest nature documentaries -- or almost-documentaries -- ever made. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: It is a devastating, profound and at times surreal work of art. Read more