100
New York Magazine (Vulture) by Bilge Ebiri
I recommend seeing it more than once; luckily, it’s so gorgeous and spellbinding that it invites repeat viewings.
This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection
Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
- Lesotho
- 2019
- · 120m
Director
Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese
Cast
Mary Twala,
Makhaola Ndebele,
Jerry Mofokeng,
Tseko Monaheng,
Siphiwe Nzima,
Thabiso Makoto
Genre
Drama
The film follows Mantoa, an 80-year-old widow. Her husband long dead, she is preparing to pass as well, arranging her own funeral and wrapping up her worldly affairs. However, her homeland is threatened with forced resettlement due to reservoir construction, and Mantoa decides she still has some fight left in her before she goes.
Stream This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection
What are critics saying?
100
RogerEbert.com by Carlos Aguilar
This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection is a searing epitaph for Mary Twala, a veteran performer at the peak of her absorbing presence. And it is a radical international breakthrough for Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, a filmmaker who uses potential philosophical expressions to ask tough questions about the ravaged history of Africa.
94
Paste Magazine by Andrew Crump
Yes, This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection is constitutionally sad. It’s also angry, restrained, abandoned, exuberant when cracks open between its downward facing emotions, and, above all else, impeccably constructed.
91
The Playlist by Andrew Bundy
This Is Not A Burial, It’s A Resurrection, is that rare gem of a film that falls into an unclassifiable category.
90
The New York Times by Nicolas Rapold
Mhlongo (who also appears in Beyoncé’s “Black Is King”) carries the movie on her shoulders with an authoritative presence.
90
Screen Daily by Allan Hunter
This Is Not A Burial, It’s A Resurrection offers a vivid, beautifully crafted reflection on identity, community and the tension between respecting age-old traditions and accepting the seemingly unstoppable march of progress.
90
Variety by Guy Lodge
A haunted, unsentimental paean to land and its physical containment of community and ancestry — all endangered by nominally progressive infrastructure — this arresting third feature from Lesotho-born writer-director Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese is as classical in theme as it is adventurous in presentation.
89
Austin Chronicle by Jenny Nulf
This Is Not a Burial, it’s a Resurrection is arthouse cinema at its best, a lyrical eulogy from a confident auteur whose poetic touch is meticulous and grand.
80
Los Angeles Times by Robert Abele
Poetic and painterly, personal and political.
75
The A.V. Club by Lawrence Garcia
There are longueurs where Mosese’s approach shows its limits, as the film’s rhythms go from stately to stultifying. More often, though, Mosese manages to fuse his film’s stylistic tensions with Mantoa’s struggles of expression, her efforts to carry on in both word and deed.
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