Machines
Pallas Film | Release Date: August 9, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
76
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 11 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Village VoiceAaron HillisAug 9, 2017
Machines proves both uncompromising and unforgettable. Read full review
90
VarietyGuy LodgeAug 9, 2017
This simultaneously beautiful and abjectly unhappy film is forced to close by silently admitting its limitations. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleSep 23, 2017
It never succumbs to making poverty a graphic ornament. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterNeil YoungAug 9, 2017
Showing levels of controlled concentration and unfussy flair far beyond what may be expected from a "student film," Machines powerfully evokes the sights and sounds — and almost even the smells — of a sprawling, stygian textiles plant south of India's eighth-largest (but very seldom filmed) city, Surat. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawAug 9, 2017
A sombre, relevant piece of work. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonTrevor JohnstonAug 9, 2017
Some accuse the filmmaker of being just like the politicians who turn up, look around and do nothing. It adds a confrontational edge to the film’s already startling combination of immersive aesthetics and humane empathy. Read full review
80
Total FilmMatt LookerAug 9, 2017
While their situation feels futile, the film is almost poetic in posing important questions. Read full review
75
IndieWireDavid EhrlichAug 11, 2017
A spare and unflinching documentary about the true cost of cheap textiles, Machines doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know about the inhumane work conditions in countries like India, but it forces us to become palpably familiar with the awful facts of the matter. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineKenji FujishimaAug 6, 2017
Rahul Jain’s film conveys with revelatory force the mechanization of people in an industrialized milieu. Read full review
60
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergAug 9, 2017
The ideological charge leveled for decades at this strain of filmmaking is that such eye-catching tableaus romanticize poverty, but prettified squalor has become sadly familiar in global documentary filmmaking. In Machines, even at barely more than an hour, the style leads to diminishing returns. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comGodfrey CheshireAug 9, 2017
A film so obedient to current academic fashions in both politics and cinema aesthetics that it ends up feeling both contrived and a bit dishonest. Read full review
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