Silent Light
Palisades Tartan | Release Date: January 7, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
79
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 14 Critic Reviews
Positive:
11
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
At bottom, Silent Light is less about faith than matters of the heart, and in Reygadas' hands, the ache is bone-deep. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleReyhan Harmanci
A film filled with beauty and pain that moves at the pace of molasses and snails. That is to say, some of it is in real time. Audiences would be advised to stay caffeinated. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
What the film is really about is people who see themselves and their values as an organic whole. There are no pious displays here. No sanctimony, no preaching. Never even the word "religion." Just Johan, Esther and Marianne, all doing their best. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Even with its limitations, I find Silent Light spellbinding. Read full review
90
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
The results are extraordinary. As understated as it is, the movie is both deeply absurd and powerfully affecting. Read full review
90
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
The film was written, directed and somehow willed into unlikely existence by the extravagantly talented Carlos Reygadas, whose immersion in this exotic world feels so deep and true that it seems like an act of faith. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Much of what happens in Silent Light can feel painstakingly mundane: milking cows, harvesting wheat, a long drive at night in and out of shadows. Yet throughout, there's a sense of something ominous impending, and while it remains gentle, the ending is genuinely startling. Read full review
88
New York PostV.A. Musetto
As is his custom, Reygadas uses a mostly nonprofessional cast; and, as expected, he draws remarkably realistic performances. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Reygadas has hitched his austere and protracted style to an allegorical tale of subtle strength and depth. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
It's amazingly beautiful and it tests your patience; both things are par for the course with Reygadas, After that, you've either surrendered to his idiosyncratic sense of rhythm, or you're out of there. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
You know you're in for a hard-core art film when you hear more people raving about its opening shot than the movie itself. Read full review
50
VarietyScott Foundas
Reygadas' typically arresting widescreen visuals and the presence of non-pro actors speaking in German-derived Plautdietsch makes for an initially hypnotic combination, but the spell breaks its hold well before the end of the picture's inflated running time, signaling an endurance test for all but the most ascetic arthouse auds. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The stab at sublimity-by-proxy doesn't take. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
This director is too calculating to hold our trust for long, and skepticism will kill transcendence every time. Read full review
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