Leviathan 2012

A.O. Scott, New York Times: [It] offers not information but immersion: 90 minutes of wind, water, grinding machinery and piscine agony. Read more

John Hartl, Seattle Times: Gradually you realize you're witnessing a nonlinear entertainment that's setting its own rules, and you'll either go with the flow or take an early leave. Read more

Noel Murray, AV Club: Leviathan is an immersive experience, plunging viewers into darkness and chaos, amid a rush of vivid color and rapid movement. Read more

Peter Keough, Boston Globe: With its repetitive images of netted and gutted sea life, the film suggests that the beast is the human hunter himself. Read more

Stephen Dalton, Hollywood Reporter: Leviathan is an immersive examination of a highly mechanized industrial process, the men who work at it and the thousands of poor fish who cross their path. Read more

Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times: More an accumulation of often indefinable images than any kind of even remotely traditional feature, the documentary "Leviathan" proves a strange and unsatisfying endurance test. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, NPR: As Leviathan trundles on, it's hard to really know what Castaing-Taylor and Paravel are trying to say. There's no strict narrative here. Read more

Farran Smith Nehme, New York Post: The adventurous souls who stick with it ... will find head-spinning images and a cumulative impact that does, in fact, amount to a story. Read more

Bill Stamets, Chicago Sun-Times: Radical experiential/experimental video of bloody viscera and abstract beauty. Embedded/embodied lens as in Brakhage's "The Governor" and Geyrhalter's "Our Daily Bread." Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Edited together into a non-linear and virtually wordless whole, it creates a briny immersive effect that is almost hallucinatory. Read more

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: After an hour it can feel like a chore. Yet the images are staggering - not least as the camera moves in and out of the ocean. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Like the hypnotic swarm of seagulls constantly trailing the boat for scraps, we lunge for meaning. Read more

Boyd van Hoeij, Variety: The pic contains several striking visuals that range from disturbing to beautiful. Read more

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice: End of days or the beginning of new ways of seeing? Read more