Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
Director
David Novack
Cast
Liev Schreiber,
Marina Vlady,
Stéphanie Campion,
David Coburn,
Andrei Malaev-Babel
Genre
Animation,
Documentary
The subversive masterpieces of Russian-Ukrainian writer Isaac Babel challenged the reality of life under rising totalitarianism, and led to his arrest and execution in 1940. “Finding Babel” confronts complex traces of a turbulent history in the conflicts between Ukraine and Russia. Babel's fiction is woven into the film with ethereal and fantastical animation.
Los Angeles Times by Robert Abele
When it’s merely a guided tour marked by sites and talking historians, Finding Babel can feel a little color-by-numbers. (Which may explain the Schreiber-read interludes.) But there are excursions that feel invigorating.
The Hollywood Reporter by Frank Scheck
The film serves as a concise biographical portrait and an excellent introduction to the writer's works.
Village Voice by Alan Scherstuhl
This lit-doc travelogue gains in power, insight, and urgency as it journeys.
The New York Times by Ben Kenigsberg
In what probably qualifies as both an accomplishment and a shortcoming, the movie makes you want to read Babel’s writing instead.
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