Ovsyanki 2010

Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times: A melancholy poem to love, loss and the tug of tradition. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: Silent Souls is thrillingly dense and allusive, and the elegiac finale maintains the overall air of mystery while beautifully bringing all the disparate threads together. Read more

Alison Willmore, AV Club: The sincerity of the film's thoughts on loss and longing, on the burdens of grief, and on reawakened awareness of existence, is always painfully heartfelt. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: It's lovely and slow and melancholic and short - 75 minutes, yet you feel you've been gone for an epoch or two. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: Rife with earthy details and poetic associations, the movie often advances like a daydream. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: There's a trancelike quality to its best moments, but too much of it is artfully boring. Read more

Mark Jenkins, NPR: Director Alexei Fedorchenko doesn't use sheer duration to immerse viewers in the spiritual journey. Not counting the credits, this beautifully photographed and quietly evocative movie is barely 70 minutes long. Read more

Sara Stewart, New York Post: "Silent Souls" is hardly long, yet the camera's repeated focus on the wintry, gray country road they're traveling can feel somewhat ponderous -- like life itself, as one of the guys in the film might wryly point out. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: This profound and immensely touching film in only 75 perfect minutes achieves the profundity of an epic. Read more

David Lewis, San Francisco Chronicle: An astonishing, haunting, sensual, lyrical, bleak and ultimately beautiful road-trip movie. Read more

Cath Clarke, Time Out: A meditation on death and sex, it's a melancholy and touchingly profound folk tale, though also deeply weird in places - pagan vajazzling, anyone? Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: At 75 minutes, Silent Souls has the sustained flow of a musical composition. Read more

Stephanie Merry, Washington Post: The Russian drama unfolds as a series of perplexing, fascinating snapshots, yet the predominant story about saying goodbye - to people and customs - are universal. Read more