Slant Magazine by Clayton Dillard
The pleasure of Denis Côté's film radiates not so much from its storytelling as it does from the meditative force of its formal construction. Read our review.
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Canada, Switzerland · 2018
1h 34m
Director Denis Côté
Starring
Genre Documentary
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Jean-François, Ronald, Alexis, Cédric, Benoit, and Maxim are the gladiators of modern times. From the strongman to the top-class bodybuilder, to the veteran who has become a trainer, they share the same obsession with overcoming their limitations. Meanwhile they work hard in the gym, follow extreme diets, and wait for the next competition.
Slant Magazine by Clayton Dillard
The pleasure of Denis Côté's film radiates not so much from its storytelling as it does from the meditative force of its formal construction. Read our review.
Côté assures them a humanity as well, without trying to analyze their obsession with this extravagant concept of masculinity, nor the need for self-display.
The New York Times by Jeannette Catsoulis
Their narcissism is repellent yet riveting, and Mr. Côté comes at his subjects with an artful, exploratory obliqueness that’s endearingly curious, as if discovering a whole new species.
Côté employs a methodical reticence that often leaves the viewer guessing as to the significance of the images we are seeing.
The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore
This doc seeks the vulnerability in subjects who live in pursuit of iron-man ideals many of us find ridiculous.
Los Angeles Times by Kimber Myers
Côté’s film patiently paints a picture of men who are more than their bodies, revealing the emotions beneath the skin and muscles and challenging perceptions about them.
The Film Stage by Rory O'Connor
Côté’s film does work very well for the most part as a somewhat cold, ornamental study of what our epidermal tissue looks like at terminal mass.
Canadian filmmaker Denis Côté holds up a shallow mirror to the world of bodybuilding in the underwhelming experimental documentary A Skin So Soft.
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