The New York Times by Dana Stevens
Luckily Mr. Reygadas has talent to match his ambitions; or, rather, gifts that undercut them sufficiently to give his film a prickly, haunting poignancy.
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Mexico, Germany, Netherlands · 2002
Rated R · 2h 14m
Director Carlos Reygadas
Starring Alejandro Ferretis, Magdalena Flores, Yolanda Villa, Martín Serrano
Genre Drama
Please login to add films to your watchlist.
A painter from Mexico City goes into the desert to commit suicide. He stays with an old indigenous widow in Ascen, in her house overlooking a desolate canyon. The painter oscillates between instincts of cruelty and care as he quietly reflects on the old widow’s humanity in relation to his own.
The New York Times by Dana Stevens
Luckily Mr. Reygadas has talent to match his ambitions; or, rather, gifts that undercut them sufficiently to give his film a prickly, haunting poignancy.
Its powerfully visual storytelling delivers great rewards as the meditative drama moves into increasingly complex, at times confrontational territory.
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
It's an engrossing and inventive drama despite its flaws.
A notably confident and achieved debut.
Japón, isnt just the wildest eruption of the current Mexican film boom, it's the most fascinating new picture I've seen this year.
This strange and beautifully expressive film set in a remote Mexican canyon has nothing whatsoever to do with Japan, but its themes are as universal as they come.
Chicago Tribune by Patrick Z. McGavin
The work of a remarkable new talent. By the movie's towering, final tracking shot, this imaginative, dazzling film achieves distinction.
New York Magazine (Vulture) by Peter Rainer
Reygadas is both a sophisticate and a primitive: He sets up his film as a religious allegory, with the nameless painter as a kind of suffering Christ and the old woman--whose name is Ascen, as in Ascension--as his redeemer.
A dense, challenging work by any measure, Japón snakes toward a justly celebrated final shot that's technically astonishing and immensely powerful, cementing the arrival of a promising new talent.
Doesn't have the crossover appeal of the Mexican sexcapade "Y Tu Mama Tambien," but it does herald the arrival of an audacious young filmmaker. We can't wait to see what he does next.
A whimsical love letter to contemporary Parisian life in the form of an eccentric romantic comedy.
A man, thoroughly dissatisfied with his life, finds new meaning when he forms a fight club with soap salesman Tyler Durden.
Let the Magic Begin.
From a place you've never heard of, comes a story you'll never forget.
After being coerced into working for a crime boss, a young getaway driver finds himself taking part in a heist doomed to fail.
A failed stand-up comedian is driven insane, turning to a life of crime in chaos in Gotham City.
Sometimes it's better to choose your own family.
A series of loosely connected stories come together in an absurd triptych.