Popular reviews

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  Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★½ 8

  I have lost patience with director Gianfranco Rosi. His last film Fire at Sea inexplicably won the Golden Bear and was a rather average arthouse documentary. His film before that was Sacro GRA which won the Golden Lion, but was an even worse film and actually pretty bad. He returns again with Notturno, which sits snugly in the middle. It isn't as mind-numbingly dull as Sacro GRA, but it also never matches the power of the best parts of Fire at Sea.

  Notturno is a documentary set on the borders of various countries in the Middle East. It follows people trying to live a normal life, in a world that is chaotic. However, as with all Rosi films, it's completely…

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  Review by Cinematic Underdogs ★★★★½

  “For me, cinema is a pretext—a pretext to meet, to encounter. Without an encounter, my movies wouldn’t exist, because my films, they are never born on a table, they are never born with a pen. They are born [from] a very small idea, and that idea becomes a big need, and that need then becomes a necessity, and that necessity becomes a journey—a huge journey.” — Gianfranco Rosi

  In every sense, Gianfranco Rosi’s latest masterpiece, Notturno, feels like the apogee of observational cinema. And yet, Rosi is the first to insist that it is anything but: “Once the camera is there, you change the dynamic [...] and everything that happens after. So it doesn’t exist, objectivity. What exists is the…

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  Review by ˗ˏˋ Liam ˊˎ˗ ★★★★½

  leaves behind the talking heads and narrative of your typical doc and instead allows the moments captured to truly speak for themselves. it’s stirring, transfixing and speaks volumes even in the quiet. it’s deeply human and cinema at its most powerful.

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  Review by Paul Elliott ★★★½

  Anonymous protagonists from a war zone characterise Notturno, the latest film from multi-award-winning documentary filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi. The documentary finds him turning his attention to the Middle East, an evocative and exciting land for its culture and mysterious and ghostly natural landscapes, but also a panorama of violence and pain for its history. It's his follow-up to the Oscar-nominated and Golden Bear winner Fire at Sea, and he moves between Syria, Lebanon, and Iran to reveal varied hues of different realities.

  It yields generally impressive results from almost three years of research, with Rosi remaining the quintessential silent observer throughout. So much so that silence comes is one of the central protagonists. His camera creates starkly composed long takes in…

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  Review by Lorenzo ★★★ 1

  Bello eh però due palle Gianfrà mamma mia...

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  Review by Cinzia Galgano ★ 2

  *Visto alla 77a mostra del cinema di Venezia*
  Non dico che non sia valido, anzi. Sonoro e fotografia spettacolari però non mi è piaciuto.

  PS. Il mio cuore va al genio che sulla bacheca delle recensioni ha scritto "Arrestate Gianfranco Rosi". Poesia

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  Review by Matt Neglia ★★½ 2

  Pretty to look at and a lot to think about but with barely any talking heads or narrative to take us through any of these gorgeous images, the end result feels empty and a waste of time.

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  Review by Nicolò Grasso ★★★★

  Quick notes from Venice: slow-moving observational documentary that shows how ISIS and the war on terror has changed the lives of those living in the Middle East. With very few dialogues and gorgeous wide nocturnal shots, this is bound to bore audiences and it won't change your feelings towards Rosi. I really liked it, and found it beautiful and powerful in its deceptive simplicity.

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  Review by Matthew B. ★★½ 1

  On the bright side, Notturno might be the most beautifully-photographed movie of the year. Unfortunately, it seems that director Gianfranco Rosi was more concerned with making a film with stunning aesthetics than one that effectively make a statement about life on the borderlands between Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Kurdistan. I had a similar reaction to Rosi’s Golden Bear-winning Fire at Sea, but the director seems even more disconnected from his subject matter here.

  The crisis in Syria and its surrounding areas has become a hot-button topic in recent years—and for good reason—but this doesn’t seem like the right topic for Rosi to tackle. Artistry vs. authenticity is certainly a debate worth having in cinema (and one tackled with quite a…

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  Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★

  A film that arrives after a post colonial nightmare and just observes life as it has to go on. How one feels about Notturno probably goes down to how one feels about Rosi's direct cinema approach relates to this specific subject matter. I can understand some misgivings about it, but his expansive very empathic gaze has rarely being put to such good use.

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  Review by sara ★

  The doc is at its most powerful when it leaves space to the people to tell their stories; unfortunately, that’s the smallest portion of the movie. For the most part it’s a series of images that look way too staged and personally took me out of it. 

  At its best it’s boring, at its worst it’s intellectually dishonest.

  
  ETA I’m pissed I hate this movie

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  Review by Leesah Sea ★★★½

  NOTTURNO is a visually stunning portrait of the residual effects of the war-torn Middle East. Filmed in various locations along the borders of Iran, Lebanon, Kurdistan and Syria, the viewer is dropped into other people’s stories; some of which are absolutely heartbreaking. This may not be some people’s cup of tea as there isn’t narration to guide the viewer through the film. But I found the snippets of people’s lives that were presented to be enough.

  (TIFF20 Film #24)