Village Voice by Stephanie Zacharek

Even beyond its charismatic star, Jauja is captivating, not least because of Alonso's ability to capture the cruel beauty of the natural landscape — you can almost see the earth itself refusing to accept European imperialism blithely.

The New York Times by A.O. Scott

The rounded-off corners of the almost-square frames evoke early movies and antique photographs, and there is wit and mischief in the way Mr. Alonso plays with the relationship between what we see, what we don’t see and what we expect to see.

New York Magazine (Vulture) by Bilge Ebiri

Jauja is a rapturously bizarre movie that resists knowledge. That’s its secret, intoxicating power; the less you understand, the more mesmerized you are.

Slant Magazine by Jake Cole

Other films of this ilk use widescreen composition to highlight a terrifying existential void, but these cramped frames tend to produce the nutty energy of cabin fever.

Boston Globe by Peter Keough

Alonso sustains an atmosphere of otherworldly immanence in a vivid setting, with a style involving long takes with characters posed as if in tableaux vivants.

The A.V. Club by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky

Everything signals birth—of Argentina, cinema, the nuclear family—until Dinesen descends into a womb-like cave and Jauja takes a hard left turn into enigma. Even the title is a mystery, the Spanish byword for a land of plenty.

Time Out

A Lynchian coda upends the entire film, raising several questions and resolving none. Fans of rigorous storytelling may find it to be one whimsical step too far, but others will marvel at this miraculous coup de théâtre. Jauja is a film to make you wonder.

Variety by Scott Foundas

In Jauja, Alsonso saves his most dazzling trick for last: a sudden plunge down a Lynchian rabbit hole that should, by all means, rupture the film’s hypnotizing atmosphere, but instead pulls the viewer in even deeper.

Time Out by Alex Dudok de Wit

A Lynchian coda upends the entire film, raising several questions and resolving none. Fans of rigorous storytelling may find it to be one whimsical step too far, but others will marvel at this miraculous coup de théâtre. Jauja is a film to make you wonder.

Empire by David Parkinson

Challengingly spellbinding.

Time Out London by Alex Dudok de Wit

A Lynchian coda upends the entire film, raising several questions and resolving none. Fans of rigorous storytelling may find it to be one whimsical step too far, but others will marvel at this miraculous coup de théâtre. Jauja is a film to make you wonder.

The Hollywood Reporter by Deborah Young

The last sequence takes the esoterism one step farther, in a beautiful ending that seems to link European wealth to those long-ago events in Latin America.

New York Post by Farran Smith Nehme

With ravishing landscapes, violent political allegory and a glacial narrative that takes an abrupt left turn in the third act: Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja resolutely checks every 2015 art-film box.

CineVue by John Bleasdale

It is a demanding watch, but at the same time, Alonso's latest has a bizarre, beguiling quality which drifts towards the sublime even if it never quite gets to its destination.

The Playlist by Jessica Kiang

Perversely episodic, strangely empty, and unfolding in a series of beautifully composed but static wide shots (giving us the unusual experience of literally yearning for a close-up), the film is a test of patience.

Hitfix

Intermittently playful, consistently confounding, finally petrified, it's a film of fussy, cultivated austerity.