Metacritic-Rezensionen

Out of agony and chaos, Chinese film-maker Lou Ye has created something mysterious, moving and even profound – a kind of multilayered docu-realist film, evidently inspired by a real-life situation in film production.

By entwining reality with dramatization to such an inseparable degree, An Unfinished Film runs the emotional gamut, with a pulsing naturalism that few films about the recent pandemic (or any real disasters) have ever managed to achieve.

It’s gripping, reflective, dramatic, and even a bit humorous.

Limber and thought-provoking, An Unfinished Film is an absorbing portrait of an unfinished era.

Life gets in the way of art all the time, and art can be made out of life. What matters, the movie suggests, is hanging onto one another for dear life.

It isn’t always a pretty picture, but it is a truthful one, proving to be a loving tribute to those lost.

Lou breaks apart the veneer of narrative perfection, in order to show where the power lies.

If the frames of Lou’s previous work suggested that reality was something that could be unlocked and unfurled, An Unfinished Film’s presentation of reality as it basically was unfortunately gives the filmmaker, and the audience, little to discover.

The lockdown across cities the world over was quite the inescapable slog; there’s no good reason for a film to replicate its worst feature.