RogerEbert.com by Nick Allen

The power in this story from comes from its very distilled manner: it tells a timeless story about hard work by completely immersing us in the steps of process, focusing on an act of incredible physical commitment.

Paste Magazine by Tim Grierson

The documentary’s so simple it feels profound without ever really trying.

Total Film

Emmanuel Gras’ film may be a doc, but with its luscious compositions and heart-rending score it plays like some post-apocalyptic Malick movie: thick dust storms, whispered prayers and an aching empathy for people scraping a living amid utter deprivation.

CineVue

Makala examines the tribulations of desolation and solitude with such respect that it’s impossible not to feel compassion.

Total Film by Tim Coleman

Emmanuel Gras’ film may be a doc, but with its luscious compositions and heart-rending score it plays like some post-apocalyptic Malick movie: thick dust storms, whispered prayers and an aching empathy for people scraping a living amid utter deprivation.

CineVue by Victoria Russell

Makala examines the tribulations of desolation and solitude with such respect that it’s impossible not to feel compassion.

Variety by Maggie Lee

French helmer-lenser Emmanuel Gras’ camera embraces the subject’s every move with such rapt intimacy and cinematic poetry it’s easy to forget this is not a fictional drama.

Slant Magazine by Derek Smith

Emmanuel Gras resists pitying or sentimentalizing his main subject, or exalting him merely for his resilience in the face of such a harsh, uncaring reality.

Screen Daily by Sarah Ward

Makala takes the observational approach to the hardships of Congolese life, charting a tough but insightful journey.

Screen International by Sarah Ward

Makala takes the observational approach to the hardships of Congolese life, charting a tough but insightful journey.

IndieWire by Michael Nordine

There’s a fine line between watching someone toil and feeling as though you’re toiling yourself, of course, and “Makala” doesn’t always land on the right side of it. It can be edifying at times to watch this, as the film is clearly a labor of love — even if the actual work depicted is not.

The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw

It is a sad and lonely world, sympathetically captured, beautifully photographed.

The Observer (UK) by Simran Hans

This immersive, slow-burning documentary about a Congolese charcoal maker finds poetry in the punishing, monotonous graft of one man’s trade.

The New York Times by Ben Kenigsberg

To ponder the colonial implications of a French director exoticizing a Congolese man whose family eats rats for meals is to realize that a movie can be heartwarming and heartless at once.

The Hollywood Reporter by Boyd van Hoeij

The film was shot chronologically and this is clear in the increasing fluidity of Gras’ camerawork, which is less and less searching the closer they get to the city.