Dupa dealuri 2012

Critics score:
90 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Karina Longworth, L.A. Weekly: A omething of a disappointment. The initially fascinating, ambiguous relationship between the two young women is overwhelmed by the hysteria spawned by her unflaggingly intense presence at the monastery Read more

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: Beyond the Hills may be the best movie no one will want to see in 2013. Read more

Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle: The film offers rewards for the patient viewer as it examines conflicting visions of love played out in a remote faith-based community. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: The complexity of the film's moral world makes the movie far more than a simple anti-religious screed. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The trouble with that is that Beyond the Hills seems like a movie that's been almost preconceived to be powerful. There's a grandiosity to it, but not much mystery. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: "Beyond the Hills" is a tough and engrossing work of realism, set in rural Romania in the dead of winter, but it also has some of the shadowy magic of an ancient folk tale. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Fascinating [and] anguishing ... Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Beyond The Hills has a rich understanding of the appeals and perils of religious values that provide structure and meaning to some while seeming cruel and irrational to outsiders. Read more

Mike D'Angelo, AV Club: Mungiu has few peers when it comes to formally rigorous nail-biters, but I'd like to see him tackle material he's more conflicted about. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: It is a haunting movie, dealing with superstitions, possession, even exorcism, one in which Mungiu poses no easy answers, because there are none to be found. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: "Beyond the Hills" seethes with astonishment and rage at a broken society marooned between the 21st century and the 16th. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Of all the movies culminating in a rite of exorcism, Romanian writer-director Cristian Mungiu's remarkable "Beyond the Hills" stands alone. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: The movie is a series of longueurs that don't add up to a grand design -- at 2-1/2 hours, it's unnecessarily repetitive -- but it has moments when the spiritual and the secular burst forth in stunning disarray. Read more

Eric D. Snider, Film.com: Assisted by passionless central performances and dull dialogue, Mungiu succeeds only in exhausting our patience, not in conveying a message. Read more

Stephen Dalton, Hollywood Reporter: It maintains the movement's stylistic roots in no-frills naturalism and long single takes, but it makes a definitive break in terms of subject matter, tackling a timeless human drama in a contemporary setting. Read more

Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times: Mungiu's quietly gripping film challenges expectations, refusing to merely lay forth an argument against benighted religion or to make Alina a simple victim. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: Cristian Mungiu's "Beyond the Hills" moves so effortlessly through the gnarly intersection of love, loss, God and godlessness that you barely notice how much he's doing, and with such effortless grace. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Mingiu used to be a journalist, and "Beyond the Hills" has the feel of real-life to it - no soaring soundtrack music, a cast full of everyday faces. Read more

Mark Jenkins, NPR: Ultimately, the bleak universe conjured by Beyond the Hills is more compelling than what happens in it. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: The deliberate pace Mungiu employs in this incredible work is so engrossing and quietly heartbreaking that its philosophical ending may come as a shock. Read more

Farran Smith Nehme, New York Post: At times the pace of "Beyond the Hills" is nerve-wrackingly slow. But Mungiu has his own way of creating suspense, and he has a gift for making a known outcome as shocking as a twist. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Running two-and-a-half engrossing hours, "Beyond the Hills" explores the push and pull between the collective and the individual, between faith and free will. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: A film that asks its viewer to consider the nature of good and evil, love and trust - and trust that turns into something like blind faith. Read more

Steven Boone, Chicago Sun-Times: "Beyond the Hills" is an arthouse film from Romania, yet, in its slow, lurching progress toward a tragic exorcism, it is a stylistic nephew of America's "The Exorcist." Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: What seems like the makings of a tawdry horror show becomes a subtle and moving exploration into the sacred and profane. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: One of the year's most powerful films. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The final shot, with windshield wipers struggling to clean away a torrent of muddy water, suggests that no human agency is great enough to handle this world's misery. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: It's an enigmatic and austere film from a region where political, sexual and religious repression are as stifling as the sooty air. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: If you long for the bleak intelligence of an Ingmar Bergman film, where humankind is deeply flawed and God is indifferently silent and the landscape is cloaked in perpetual winter, then Beyond the Hills promises to be your cup of despair. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: There are no easy villains or heroes in this sad and slow but forcefully told tale, which exhibits the same humanity Mungiu brought to 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, his abortion drama that won the 2007 Palme d'Or. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: A cerebral melodrama of the most steely, bare and brutal kind. Read more

David Fear, Time Out: There are exchanges, ambiguities and a noggin-scratcher of a final shot that I'm still mulling over days later, but the sense that this ground has been trod over many times has shaken my faith a bit. Read more

Scott Foundas, Village Voice: A powerful and necessary act of reclamation. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: An austere but subtly textured retelling of a 2005 news story in which a young woman died during an exorcism. Read more