There Was Once...
Gabor Kalman Films | Release Date: September 23, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
64
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 5 Critic Reviews
Positive:
3
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
VarietyRonnie ScheibSep 24, 2011
Hungarian schoolteacher Gyongi Mago's campaign to raise awareness of her hometown's once-vibrant, now conspicuously absent Jewish population is captured in the superior docu There Was Once ... Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKevin ThomasSep 22, 2011
Much in this wholly absorbing and poignant documentary is familiar from numerous previous Holocaust accounts, but Mago and her quiet sense of moral obligation provides a fresh perspective. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineAndrew SchenkerSep 19, 2011
A not insignificant act of oral history, Gabor Kalman's There Was Once… makes for considerably less compelling cinema whenever it turns its focus away from the talking-head testimony of the Holocaust survivors of Kalosca, Hungary. Read full review
60
The New York TimesDavid DeWittSep 22, 2011
Ah, well. "There Was Once ...may feel like sober, do-gooder public television, but it has integrity, recording one specific town's slice of living history. Simple as that, it's a worthy document. Read full review
60
Village VoiceMichelle OrangeSep 20, 2011
The neo-Nazi sentiment in Hungary today is touched on most acutely when it mars the memorial that finally brings the survivors home. Read full review
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