Popular reviews

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  Review by Rock Hyrax

  A brutalist doom-drone Antigone by cine-dance pioneer Amy Greenfield, also in the title role. Austere, glacial, composed of extended actions against harsh concrete angles and scorched desert stones, elemental compositions for stone and flame, mud and dust. Perhaps less a film than an immersive installation, a wholistic oppressive mood without much need for linear narrative (though the essential terms of the plot, drawn directly from Sophocles, are in fact very simply conveyed). More than the image, which can feel a little too austere, it's the sound design that draws me in, though. Greenfield pulled together existing work from Diamanda Galas and key members of the NYC avant-garde like Glenn Branca, David van Tieghem, and Elliot Sharp, and somehow stitched them seamlessly together with the non-diegetic voices of the dancers into a cohesive symphony.

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  Review by David Mattatall ★★★★

  Once again letterboxd reviewers are the stupidest twitter rejects.

  This was well choreographed. Amazing sets. Great costume design. And pitch perfect score.

  Maybe you all should stick to marvel films.

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  Review by Not Jonathan Rosenbaum

  In style and overall approach, Amy Greenfield’s adaptation of Sophocles’ tragedy (including some elements from Oedipus at Colonus) harks back to experimental filmmaking of the 60s and early 70s, particularly in the uses of modern dance and nature. Greenfield basically keeps the text offscreen, works with aggressive modernist music by several hands, and depends quite a bit on gestures, highly composed frames, and percussive, eclectic editing; at times the film seems divided between the idea that the tragedy is taking place in the deadpan faces and the idea that it’s happening in the bodies, settings, text, and music. (By and large, the music and dance are more compelling than the faces or the readings of the text, both of which…