The Violin.

"Much appreciated by Mexican cineasts, writer-director Francisco Vargas's accomplished first feature The Violin is a solemn, suspenseful, extremely well-shot political drama," writes J Hoberman in the Voice. "This evocation of the 1970s Guerrero peasant revolt has an old-time feel that variously suggests a Soviet silent picture, one of B Traven's Chiapas stories, and an updated legend from Mexico's revolutionary past."

"[I]t blends fablelike simplicity with documentary touches to tell the story of a near-primordial struggle between the haves and the have-nots," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "For the three generations of one indigenous family who travel to small, dusty towns, playing their music for coins, the struggle is written on their unsmiling faces and in their plaintive, haunting songs."

"Mr Vargas believes that less is more, and he does his best to hide the motivations of his characters from the audience, with the result being an oblique, plodding flick that looks and sounds good but serves up the same old stock characters," writes Grady Hendrix in the New York Sun. "Maybe it's me, but this film was boring."

Earlier: David D'Arcy last year.

Update: "The Violin has a chillingly effective atmosphere focused on surreal, barren terrain," writes Eric Kohn at the Reeler. "The movie puts forth such simple character motivation that it could function as an extended music video for the folk song synopsizing the events heard at the end of the movie. Nevertheless, the climax has fist-clenching efficaciousness worthy of the finest suspense films."

Posted by dwhudson at December 5, 2007 1:23 PM