83
At its heart, the film tells an incredibly touching – and altogether unexpected – human story. Entertaining and educational in equal parts, Simó’s animated film is one you don’t want to skip.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
Paste Magazine by Andrew Crump
Simó “gets” Buñuel’s drives, and his animation lends the story a layer of romanticism while emphasizing that talent isn’t a hall pass. Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles treats genius as a knottier idea. Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan is a masterpiece, sure, but “masterpiece” takes on layers of new meaning once we see how the sausage is made.
75
RogerEbert.com by Brian Tallerico
As “Las Hurdes” blurred documentary and fiction, this film blurs what we traditionally expect from animation. As for why to tell this story, it’s all really there in an opening discussion about the impact of art and what is gained from dissecting it vs. just experiencing it.
100
In animation, Simó finds the ideal canvas, one that allows him to recount the most gruesome instances of strenuous filmmaking in more palatable form while also ingeniously enlivening the surreal sequences with glorious hand-drawn work.
75
For all of its heady ideas, some of which it explores to greater effect than others, Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles is most striking for how it illustrates that animation isn’t a mere subcategory of cinema. That movies have always been a unique medium for how they see reality and unreality as two overlapping roads towards the same truth.
70
The New York Times by Glenn Kenny
The animation is handsome, the graphic settings understated but intelligently detailed.
67
The Film Stage by Jared Mobarak
It’s an interesting glimpse at his process with Buñuel doing despicable things alongside beautiful ones.
80
The Hollywood Reporter by Jonathan Holland
Bunuel is above all a good story elegantly told.
80
Though undeniably charming, Buñuel can be a difficult character to like here, but that’s the point: The movie dares to imagine the exact moment when Buñuel the callow prankster became Buñuel, engaged anthropologist of the human condition, whose later Mexico City masterpiece “Los Olvidados” was clearly informed by what he witnessed in Las Hurdes.
70
Los Angeles Times by Robert Abele
At its most absorbing, Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles makes it clear there are no easy answers, perhaps especially when the art itself isn’t easy.