Post Tenebras Lux 2012

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Life and death, nature and culture, sex and money, man and beast, God and the Devil - "Post Tenebras Lux" embraces the world even if it doesn't open itself up to ready interpretation. Read more

Tom Keogh, Seattle Times: Reygadas' jagged, broken-logic drama lurches from fantasy to earthbound complications, though it is often hard to tell one from the other. Read more

Mike D'Angelo, AV Club: The film is never less than fascinating, but it appears to be so intensely personal as to be all but indecipherable to viewers not personally acquainted with the filmmaker, or at least in possession of the press kit. Read more

Peter Keough, Boston Globe: Along with Bela Tarr and Terrence Malick, Carlos Reygadas is one of today's few genuinely religious filmmakers. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: This one delivers a grand pictorialism and piercing existential moments that float atop the maundering narrative like noodles in soup. Read more

David Ehrlich, Film.com: "'Post Tenebras Lux' works so well because - even at its most random - it always feels like more of a single portrait of a man in crisis than it does an impish bouquet of provocative incidents." Read more

Neil Young, Hollywood Reporter: Acclaimed Mexican auteur's self-indulgent exercise in exquisite pseudo-profundity commits hara-kiri on his own reputation. Read more

Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times: Moviegoers beholden to clean narrative may feel they need their own explanatory GPS and audio guide. But the richer reward lies in allowing oneself to be led by this gifted director's instinct for lyrical, sensory exploration. Read more

Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic: The result calls for a viewing as different as looking at a Vermeer against Rothko or de Kooning or multiple other modern painters. Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: The premise is realized with a sludgy, bombastic portentousness; the images, for all their strained rhapsody, show little, and merely recite a thesis. Read more

Scott Tobias, NPR: It's as if Reygadas started with a sprawling cache of visual ideas and then tried to find some way to organize them all. The effect can be frustrating at times, but also surprising and beguiling. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Regadas overdoes everything in a self-indulgent presentation of trite fantasies masked as memories. Read more

Farran Smith Nehme, New York Post: Like a jumbled-up set of nesting boxes, the scenes make sense individually (kind of). The hard part is fitting them together. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: A mesmerizing combination of opaque art-house cinema, personal reflection and class-based rural thriller, Mexican director Carlos Reygadas' "Post Tenebras Lux" casts a strange and powerful spell. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: Yet again, one senses that Reygadas - instead of simply getting on with the job of making a film - has opted instead to go for an opus magnum that reminds us of cinema's greats Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: This is a movie that, even in its most inexplicable or provocative moments, welcomes each of us into its stream of subconsciousness as a fellow dreamer. Read more

Jay Weissberg, Variety: The title, signifying "light after darkness," derives from the Latin translation of the Book of Job, an appropriate source given that a considerable amount of the prophet's proverbial patience is required. Read more

Steve Erickson, Village Voice: Confusion often reigns here, but the film offers a degree of lush beauty that makes sitting through it well worth the occasional frustrations. Read more