70
Metascore
9 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 88RogerEbert.comMatt FagerholmRogerEbert.comMatt FagerholmRather than massage the ego of its progressive target audience, this film stares back at us with a piercingly critical gaze.
- 80The Hollywood ReporterLeslie FelperinThe Hollywood ReporterLeslie FelperinIn another filmmaker's hands, this might have become a message-heavy morass, but Sauper and his co-editor, veteran Yves Deschamps (Bruno Dumont's The Life of Jesus, the 2018 restoration of Orson Welles' The Other Side of the Wind) work the material with a remarkable fluidity and gracefulness that's consistently engaging and surprising.
- 75Movie NationRoger MooreMovie NationRoger MooreEpicentro is a lovely new tone poem to Cuba, as it is now, the Cuba behind the propaganda from within and without.
- 75Slant MagazineChris BarsantiSlant MagazineChris BarsantiIt alternates political ponderings with a loose and discursive subtext in which Hubert Sauper explores the idea of Cuba as an island paradise.
- 75The Film StageMatt CipollaThe Film StageMatt CipollaFor such a wide swirl of contradictions, Epicentro largely pays off.
- 74Paste MagazinePaste MagazineEpicentro depicts Cuba as a land that has long battled imposed polarities akin to that false Renaissance dichotomy: barbarous and noble—utopian and dystopian, scenic and impoverished. Intimate images in an age of transition: Sauper finds a view of modern Cuba between the contradictions history has forced onto it.
- 70Screen DailyAllan HunterScreen DailyAllan HunterIt is the resilience of individuals that seems to reflect a melancholy Cuba acutely aware of its past but curious about its future. There are times when Epicentro seems to lack focus but no matter where it roams, it always returns to its central concerns of colonisation, mythmaking and the way the true spirit of Cuba resides in its people.
- 70The New York TimesBen KenigsbergThe New York TimesBen KenigsbergWhether Sauper’s travels delivered a cohesive movie this time is debatable, but what he does find is always interesting.
- 50VarietyDennis HarveyVarietyDennis HarveyIt’s a fascinating moment for cultural stock-taking. Yet despite the filmmaker’s evident fondness for the people and nation, this impressionistic feature feels frustratingly obtuse, unfocused and unstructured.