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Patience (After Sebald)

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United Kingdom · 2012
1h 30m
Director Grant Gee
Starring Jonathan Pryce
Genre Documentary

Internationally acclaimed German writer W.G. Max Sebald died only six years after completing his third and most influential book, 'The Rings of Saturn.' Take a walk through East Anglia as various thinkers explore his thoughts on landscape, art, history, life and loss in this richly textured essay film.

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What are critics saying?

75

New York Post by

A thoughtfully conceived and tastefully executed tribute to a venerated author.

90

The New York Times by A.O. Scott

If he is a self-revealing writer, it is not in the usual, confessional sense, but rather because he seems so strongly present in his books, with a personality that is both the source and aftereffect of the prose.

60

Time Out by David Fear

Look elsewhere if you want a linear timeline of Sebald's life or don't possess that titular virtue; everyone else will want to make a beeline to their local bookstore.

60

Empire by Ian Nathan

With so many films adapted from novels, it's nice to see cinema paying homage to unheralded greats of literature like Sebald. While this one often struggles to do justice to his sense of grandeur and poetry, it'll be manna for fans of the German's work.

83

The A.V. Club by Noel Murray

Patience reveals through images and tone as well as through the interviews how Sebald yearned for restorative meaning in the places he toured, only to end up lost in thought.

80

Variety by Ronnie Scheib

Gee follows Sebald's path with only occasional detours, while intermittently glimpsed talking heads fade in and out of artful black-and-white landscapes.

60

The Guardian by Xan Brooks

In keeping with the spirit of Sebald's writing, Gee's film is teasing, elegant and perhaps inevitably unresolved: an invitation as opposed to a destination.

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