75
Tran's cinematography is delicate yet probing. Faces, especially eyes, tell much of the story.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
New Times (L.A.) by Bill Gallo
It's a bewildering but deeply satisfying paradox, this constant, nearly silent collision in Tran's films of the visible world and the turbulent, unseen world.
70
The New York Times by Dana Stevens
An oblique, vaguely sorrowful study in domestic emotion, structured around the small eruptions of feeling -- tenderness, anger, and joy -- that punctuate the slow serenity of daily life.
90
Vertical Ray slows our rhythms and heightens our senses: it's a shimmering, tactile experience.
75
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
The cinematography is gorgeous from first frame to last, but the story occasionally rings false.
80
Washington Post by Desson Thomson
There are scenes that simply ask the audience to drink in the details, to enjoy the repast, just as much as follow the plot.
60
Filled with bird sounds, Vertical Ray is almost surreal in its paradise imagery -- the movie is a sultry, harmoniously expressionistic riot of pale greens and deep yellows.
63
New York Post by Jonathan Foreman
For all its virtues, this is not a film to see on less than a good night's sleep.
50
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
Story is fairly conventional and not especially well told, though as usual Tran's images are so sensual and beautiful that I was rarely bored or frustrated.
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Sean Axmaker
Much of the film is oddly ambiguous, as if Tran used it to explore conflicts of tradition and modernity and never came up with any answers.