Popular reviews

• 

  Review by davidehrlich ★★★ 2

  It’s a truth so universally acknowledged that it seldom bears repeating: America sees animation as a genre, while the rest of the world recognizes it as an art form unto itself. Here, it’s just for kids, and most of the movies that Hollywood makes with it are about ice princesses or angry birds or plastic sporks gripped by existential crises. Beyond our borders, however, animation can be for anyone, and tell stories about anything. One look at something from Studio Ghibli or Cartoon Saloon is enough to appreciate how much we lose by treating “cartoons” as a lesser form of cinema that chiefly exists to placate young children; a massive animation department wasting its talents on the likes of “Wonder…

• 

  Review by Allison M. 🌱 ★★★½ 5

  Buñuel is the master of everything film related. This film covers his early years: Un Chien andalou and L’Age d’Or made in France and Land Without Bread made in Spain. 

  
  Going in, I was hoping for more of an overview of his career, but that’s okay. I had already read his wonderful autobiography My Last Sigh which gives so much insight and is essential reading for the Buñuel enthusiast. 

  This film shows that Buñuel did things his own way. Some of his success was due to luck and some of it was due to his unfaltering vision. This film is also recommended to anyone with even the slightest bit of interest in Buñuel. It is in Spanish with English subtitles,…

• 

  Review by Joshua Dysart ★★½

  Okay, well, I thought it might go down like this. I almost always hate movies about the lives of artists. Safe, lionizing, and boring as they often are. This is not safe or lionizing. It’s the other one.

  Quick bits...

  1. You gotta have balls the size of Buicks to make a movie about Buñuel. That is just a crazy thing for a filmmaker to want to do.

  2. Animation sucks for delivering the full load of surrealism. Maybe you think it’s perfect for it because you see surrealist animation all the time, but that’s my point. It’s the easiest thing in the world. Animation is inherently surrealist. Surrealism is best when erupting from a perceived reality. Perhaps that wasn’t…

• 

  Review by Jordi Sánchez-Navarro ★★★★

  Espléndida ensoñación animada sobre cómo pudo ser el rodaje de Las Hurdes. Tierra sin pan. Magnífica como homenaje al productor Ramón Acín, asesinado por las tropas de Franco al inicio de la Guerra Civil Española, y como retrato de los claroscuros de Buñuel, atrapado en un conflicto irresoluble entre la voluntad de que su cine sirviera para cambiar el mundo y su impulso irrefrenable de impactar al público y escandalizar a los bienpensantes. Para renovar la fe en una animación diferente.

• 

  Review by Noah Thompson ★★★

  That would be very surreal.

  While it's likely not to work for everyone, considering some of the events that are covered in this, I found this to be a very empathetic and interesting take on this kind of story when necessary. Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles to me fully benefits from working in the realm of animation. It's frequently animated beautifully, almost at times even feeling a step away from a 90's Disney feature despite its sporadic morbid imagery. It overall makes the blending of reality and surrealism that much more impactful. Luis Buñuel himself is portrayed as a very flawed human being, the feature unafraid to flinch away from the more despicable things he did in the…

• 

  Review by Sarah ★★★★

  The rest of the world treats animation as a medium instead of a genre, and that's how it should be

• 

  Review by Tim Brayton ★★ 2

  Making a film about Luis Buñuel and his art that takes the form of a neat and tidy "daddy didn't love me" biopic with clear-cut lessons for us to take away is so unfathomably, overwhelmingly the wrong choice that one can almost imagine Buñuel himself admiring the shameless perversity of it.

  I, however, do not.

• 

  Review by Peter H ★★★½

  I think most other reviewers are being too harsh. Buñuel is a bastard, it's true. He abuses animals, compromises his own values, and takes advantage of his friends. But director Salvador Simó takes pains to show us why he acts this way. We can argue about the moral accounting, and which behaviors are and aren't justified. But any way you look at it, the central character here is a great deal more complex and interesting than you get in most movies.

  The animation in Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles is serviceable, but nothing special. At least the characters actually look like an artist created them, as opposed to looking designed by a committee of computer programmers. The art…

• 

  Review by adrián ★★★★

  ¡Cowabunga!

  Una pequeña joya cuya mera existencia resulta tan sorprendente como digna de elogio, con una dirección artística de José Luis Ágreda que me ha añadido 20 años de vida y un desgarradoramente conmovedor homenaje a Ramón Acín y, en el fondo, a la siempre incomprendida figura del productor, héroe anónimo de producciones como aquella en la que la película se centra y, sinceramente, como esta propia película.

• 

  Review by Nikotinniki

  Eine wirklich aufschlussreiche Danksagung an den großartigen Luis Bunuel und seine nicht minder beeindruckenden Weggefährten. Hätte mir als reine Dokumentation besser gefallen, aber letztendlich wurde alles gesagt was gesagt werden musste. Danke...

• 

  Review by deMicha ★★★

  1930 in Paris
  Der 30 jährige Filmemacher Luis Buñuel hat mit seinem ersten Film sofort einen Skandal ausgelöst, da er sehr surreal war. Mittellos und ohne Geldgeber fahrt er zu seinem Freund dem Bildhauer Ramón Acin. Als dieser im Lotto gewinnt und seinen nächsten Film finanziert geht die Reise/der Dreh los.

  Animationsfilm von 2019 über die teilweise wahre Entstehungsgeschichte des dritten Films von Buñuel. Hab davor noch nie was von diesem Film gehöhrt, deshalb war ich angenehm überrascht. Die Art des Filmes, ab und an ein Mix aus Trick- und Realfilm, hatte mich mal wieder sofort. Die Person Luis Buñuel hat mein Interesse geweckt. Eine interessante Geschichte/Begebenheit wird hier schön umgesetzt und geht auch schnell vorbei.

• 

  Review by James Witherspoon ★★★

  Bunuel really didn't like animals, huh?