50
The Hollywood Reporter by Deborah Young
The finale is telegraphed far in advance, yet when it comes the drama is so down-played it doesn’t register in its full horror.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
75
For a film that so often trades in claustrophobic close-ups, some of the strongest compositions in Natural Light are its grander landscape shots, making a sinister beast of Hungary’s jagged treelines.
40
Audiences amenable to cold, meticulous shots where people are accorded the same attributes as a landscape will find elements to admire, and certainly on a cerebral level there’s much to appreciate, yet Natural Light sheds no warmth and offers no insight into the horrors of the human condition during wartime.
90
Natural Light is a tough, slow film that makes demands on its audience – though much of the real horror is as just-off-screen for us as it is for Corporal Semetka. But it’s also an absorbing, beautifully crafted, thought-provoking addition to the new Hungarian cinematic wave.
75
The Film Stage by Rory O'Connor
Nagy’s is a story of bleakness, a test of endurance, and a reminder that war is a hell that, atypically, refuses to rely on gratuitousness. And it ultimately, just about, earns that overbearing solemnity.