90
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
While this is a first-person documentary, with the director providing voice-over narration, it expresses a poignant humility and a patient willingness to listen.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
90
Guzman’s heart and soul investment in the film and the snapshots of people power in action make for an emotional and involving documentary.
90
My Imaginary Country is as much about the causes, participants and outcomes of a collective awakening in search of a more promising future as it is about an artist allowing himself to feel hope for a homeland that has forever been the focus of his artistic preoccupations.
75
Slant Magazine by Chris Barsanti
By the end of My Imaginary Country, Guzmán has still not moved past the trauma of history. Nor, he suggests, has Chile. Not yet. But he does leave open the possibility of a future not beholden to that trauma and a nation that might now be able to write a new history for itself.
80
While in formal terms it’s more of a standard, reportage-based doc than any of his recent essays, it is also the rarest of projects: one in which a venerated member of an older generation of political activists communicates a fervent admiration for his younger counterparts and a deep, grateful optimism for the future they are building.
83
The Playlist by Rafaela Sales Ross
As newly-elected president Gabriel Boric takes the stage to address the nation that placed upon him precious trust, it is hard not to be moved by the electric rawness of hope.
90
Guzmán’s skills as a documentarian have not eroded one bit. His soft narration reminds one of Werner Herzog sans his, at times, metaphysical excesses. The director captures incredible footage of the protests as a functioning organism, a sublime wave of furious power.