Popular reviews

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  Review by demi adejuyigbe ★★★★½ 6

  Gorgeous! Brilliant! Fuck, this is a cool film.

  I'm glad I got to watch it with absolutely no concept of what it was about. For some reason, every single thing I've seen written about this movie so far has massive spoilers. Just watch it, don't look anything up. Let yourself be a bit confused and then feel the joy as it all comes together.

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  Review by maria ★★★★ 5

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  i sea dead people

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  Review by Sean Baker 7

  Had to see it on the big screen so I waited for a one-off screening at Vancouver Intl. Film Centre instead of watching at home. Diop, a wonderful actor who made a strong impression on me with just two roles (35 Shots of Rum and Simon Killer) proves to be just as interesting a director. Always ahead of the audience, not afraid of long takes and tangents and tackling the issue of immigration in a profound way. Very strong debut.

  Very pretty cinematography by Claire Mathon who captures the ghostly, silvery night scapes of Dakar.

  Panasonic Varicam 35, Zeiss Ultra Speed and Angenieux Optimo Lenses
  Red Weapon, Zeiss Ultra Speed and Angenieux Optimo Lenses

  Check out this interview... she mentions that Diop cited several of Carpenter’s films (Fog, Assault) for the look.
  www.afcinema.com/Claire-Mathon-AFC-discusses-her-work-on-Mati-Diop-s-film-Atlantique.html?lang=fr

  Mati Diop is the first black woman director in history to compete in Cannes competition.

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  Review by SilentDawn ★★★★ 7

  80

  A film haunted by its own yearning for a better future. Mati Diop's debut feature floats between realism and ghostly transient spaces without a hitch, and is packed with heavy, perfectly realized performances. Exists in a methodical, repetitive state of elemental grace and harsh ideas. Just gorgeous. Don't let this one out of sight - catch it on Netflix.

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  Review by 🔮 dana danger 🔮 ★★★★ 2

  a top-tier gothic romance: the billowing curtains, the ominous sea, the love that transcends worldly boundaries.

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  Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★★ 9

  A deeply soul-searing masterpiece concerning the infinite and metaphysical power of the human spirit’s collision with the enormous, ever-expanding network at the helm of humanity’s obsession with the material. We are not worthy of the glory.

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  Review by reibureibu ★★★★ 3

  Towers scraping heavens built by those drowned in depths; in lieu of any divine retribution for the greed of man do those most suffered take it upon themselves. There is, however, no real justice in the end, the lives lost at sea still lost but with fare for their ferry. Justice in this sense is reduced to reparations, greed paying for its own indulgences and then some (many). Perhaps this is the best we can envision under such material conditions – speculative social realism that can only look back. We look nevertheless.

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  Review by kailey ★★★★ 14

  very vague spoilers in the fourth paragraph

  the ocean is eternal and it is harsh. i think that the waves crash upon the shore because they will be here long after we are all dust.

  every frame in this movie feels ghostly. the pulse of the whole thing is both leisurely and frantic. the camera lingers at night and shudders during the day. the sky is a hazy azure at most times and the spaces of the city feel empty even as they are packed with people. there's progress and there is tradition and there is the uneasy mingling of both. there is a large tower that shines with a bright light and a cemetery of men with no graves.…

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  Review by Sam Van Hallgren ★★★★ 1

  Remember when everyone was saying how they were so glad they went into Parasite completely unprepared for what they were about to see?

  That.

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  Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★½ 4

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  48/100

  A potentially strong idea undermined by one deeply misguided element. I'm not gonna suggest, as Variety's Jay Weissberg did, that Diop chose to have Souleiman possess the police investigator for heteronormative reasons. That seems a tad presumptuous. But I'm damned if I know why she did make that choice, which does not work on any level. First (but not foremost), it just plain doesn't make sense: Why would every drowned migrant except one take over the bodies of their wives/girlfriends? Even if we assume that Souleiman alone, as a ghost, is more motivated by sexual jealousy (or romantic passion, I suppose, though burning the bed really suggests the former) than by righteous anger over having been exploited as a…

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  Review by Sarah ★★★★★

  Nontraditional ghost stories are one of the most beautiful things imaginable

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  Review by MarcJR ★★★★

  Enigmatic and absorbing.

  An emotionally grounded slice of spiritual realism that manages to be fascinatingly eerie without ever delving into the world horror, instead, using the powers of love and loss to explore the mysteries of the afterlife. Featuring some of the most richly-layered sounds and imagery seen in a film so far this year, Atlantics is absolutely stunning from the first frame to the last.

  Mati Diop is one to watch.