Primo Levi's Journey.

"In what might be the weirdest entrant ever into the road-trip movie genre, director Davide Ferrario and his crew have hit the (dirt) road to meticulously retrace Primo Levi's long trip home from Auschwitz," writes Julia Wallace, reviewing Primo Levi's Journey for the Voice.

"Even when Ferrario's observation of a country's distinct political anxiety is interestingly tied to one of Levi's philosophical musings about the self and the world, the film still radiates the aloofness of a dry academic lecture," writes Ed Gonzalez at Slant.

Updated through 8/18.

"Primo Levi's Journey is a profound meditation on the unevenness of history, reminding us - as Faulkner once remarked - that the past not only isn't dead, it isn't really past at all," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir.

"Although occasionally verbose, the documentary successfully empathizes with Levi's outlook," writes Eric Kohn in the New York Press.

Update, 8/18: "Vividly impressionistic and delightfully curious," writes Jeannette Catsoulis. "Whether mingling with neo-Nazis in Munich or dealing with the KGB in Belarus, Mr Ferrario keeps his eyes open and his opinions to himself.... Primo Levi's Journey is a serendipitous reminder that the cultural consequences of capitalism are inseparable from — and often less welcome than — its economic promise."

Posted by dwhudson at August 16, 2007 2:31 PM