The film's tone is just as original. How to describe it? it owes a bit to the biographical films of Ken Russell, which teetered on the edge of camp and used facts as a springboard for wild fancy; but it's much sweeter.
63
Slant MagazineCarson Lund
Slant MagazineCarson Lund
When the appeal of the film's whimsy wears off, the fogginess of its historical perspectives comes to the fore.
To call results over-the-top is less a criticism than a statement of intent. While it may be old-fashioned and silly in many respects, Mitta’s film is not dull, and its heedless embrace of cliche has a retro charm.
50
Village VoiceSerena Donadoni
Village VoiceSerena Donadoni
There's a great deal of rhetoric about revolution and radical art, but Chagall-Malevich is staid and conventional.
50
The DissolveKate Erbland
The DissolveKate Erbland
Kitted out with colorful and creative scenes that aim to depict Chagall’s dreamy, expressionist work within the film’s framework, Chagall-Malevich shoots high, though it often comes crashing down to Earth.
It’s a literally colorful and playful attempt to portray battlefields of artistic ambition and political struggle. But its dialogue and characters are also written as subtly as a radical manifesto.
Although the results could never be accused of being uneventful, the characters cry out for deeper, more complex dimensions than simply the wide-eyed dreamer and the rhetoric-spewing agitator on display here.