TV Guide Magazine by Ken Fox

With very little dialogue and lingering shots of the landscape -- always a very important visual trope in Dumont's deep-psyche explorations -- the film is nevertheless tighter and, clocking in at under 90 minutes, relatively brief.

New York Post by V.A. Musetto

Unspeakable brutality ensues, including a rape, a castration and cold-blooded murder. Dumont never mentions Iraq, but the parallels are clear.

Chicago Tribune by Michael Phillips

Except for the tractors, and the tanks in the later desert battle sequences, Flanders could be taking place centuries ago. Or centuries from now.

L.A. Weekly by Scott Foundas

The film arrives at a familiar conclusion -- that war is hell -- but the getting there is made uniquely unsettling by Dumont's relentlessly anti-psychological disposition.

Los Angeles Times by Kevin Crust

Nonprofessional actors Boidin and Leroux deliver intense performances which shoulder the emotional weight of the film.

Empire by David Parkinson

Harrowing and complex, this study in terror is not for the faint of heart.

Washington Post by Desson Thomson

Flanders, which takes us from the rustic heartland of northern France to the killing fields of an unnamed foreign locale, has such a primitive poetry, we are moved even by its most gruesome moments.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

With razor-sharp precision, Dumont interweaves scenes of battle with the unravelling of a young woman back home, involved with two of the soldiers. But this is not bleakness just for the sake of it. When it arrives, the ray of hope rings perfectly true for being so devoid of artifice.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Staff (Not Credited)

With razor-sharp precision, Dumont interweaves scenes of battle with the unravelling of a young woman back home, involved with two of the soldiers. But this is not bleakness just for the sake of it. When it arrives, the ray of hope rings perfectly true for being so devoid of artifice.

San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle

Underneath the seeming blandness of its presentation -- the sparse dialogue, the affectless characters -- there's a ferocious and caustic view of humanity.

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

This film has few tangible pleasures, such as some somber shots of Demester walking far away in a field. Its achievement is theoretical. It wants to depict lives that are without curiosity, introspection and hope.

The New York Times by Stephen Holden

Whether you like or loathe Mr. Dumont’s movies, his unsettling vision of humanity stripped of cultural finery feels profoundly truthful.

Variety by Deborah Young

A somber, beautifully acted reflection on the barbarity of war and the bestiality of man.

The A.V. Club by Scott Tobias

Once again, Dumont cycles through the pet themes of films like "L'Humanité" and "Twentynine Palms," but their repetition is beginning to seem like shtick.

Film Threat by Phil Hall

Bruno Dumont’s Flanders is something you don't see everyday: a decidedly non-sentimental love story.

Premiere by Aaron Hillis

As a fan, it's upsetting to admit that Dumont's ideas and insights have narrowed with this picture, his relaxed pacing now lethargic, his physically and mentally thick characters too familiar, and his ice-water shocks a bit predictable. It would seem self-parodic if it weren't so damn tragic.

Village Voice

Flanders is, dontcha know, a state of mind, and Dumont is plain out of his.

The Hollywood Reporter by Kirk Honeycutt

Pretentious to the core and lacking any context or credible characterizations.