Il Buco
| Release Date: May 13, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
78
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
CineVueChristopher MachellJun 12, 2022
In one sense, Il buco is a testament to human hubris, contrasting the self-satisfaction of our own temporary structures with the unknowable depth of nature’s works. Read full review
100
Little White LiesDavid JenkinsJun 10, 2022
It’s a magnificent piece of work, completely beguiling from end to end and one which wears its immense philosophical profundity with admirable lightness. Read full review
100
TheWrapFran HoepfnerMay 12, 2022
Il Buco is riveting and bewitching, a wholly immersive film, led soulfully by Frammartino’s confidence in saying less. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottMay 12, 2022
Frammartino connects the physical with the metaphysical. The world as he renders it is an anthology of concrete objects and unrepeatable moments that are somehow infused with abstract, even spiritual meanings. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterLovia GyarkyeSep 12, 2021
One could walk away with deep thoughts about modernity and the relationship between nature and man, but that’s not required. Appreciating the beauty of an intricate process unfolding is more than enough. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeJun 12, 2022
The wordless earth magic of the storytelling won’t be for everyone, but the film casts a beguiling spell. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinJun 10, 2022
This is a film as delicate as dripping water, with depths that are quietly waiting to be plumbed. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawJun 7, 2022
The film declines to offer up its meaning, or its reason for being, and asks us to think about something outside the passage of time. Read full review
80
The GuardianXan BrooksSep 12, 2021
It’s not quite a documentary, yet nor is it exactly a narrative feature. It lives alone; the cinematic equivalent of a hermit on a mountaintop. Read full review
75
The PlaylistCharles BramescoSep 12, 2021
Frammartino handles the collision between a vanishing then and the encroaching now with a light touch, mournful yet not quite damning. Read full review
70
Screen DailyLee MarshallSep 12, 2021
Il Buco proves that cinema still has the capacity to astonish in a very innocent, childlike way as a medium in which light illuminates a black screen and creates beauty. Read full review
67
IndieWireBen CrollSep 12, 2021
Like that abyss, the film offers a substantial degree of exploration for those willing to do the work and take the dive. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineKeith WatsonSep 18, 2021
The film meticulously evokes a 1961 speleological expedition, but its search for thematic resonance is frustratingly general. Read full review
60
The New YorkerRichard BrodyMay 11, 2022
In excluding conversation, commentary, analysis, context, and personality, Frammartino is a cinematic Icarus: he strains high for sublimity and finds a deck of picture postcards. Read full review
60
Time OutTrevor JohnstonApr 29, 2022
Il Buco is certainly thoughtful and worthwhile, but perhaps just short of the revelation we were hoping for. Read full review
60
VarietyJessica KiangSep 12, 2021
A docufiction that tenderly, wordlessly and rather too obliquely recreates a 1961 speleological expedition to measure the depth of an unexplored crevasse in Italy’s Calabria region. Read full review
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