Kritiken

With multiple narratives unfolding simultaneously, [Favorites of the Moon] might seem unwieldy, if it weren’t for the witty dialogues and cinematic elegance that bind them together (in actual fact, the film is undeniably engaging and quite easy to follow).

A work worthy in stature of its lofty comparisons to both Jacques Tati and Robert Altman, Otar Iosseliani’s Favorites of the Moon is an absurdist, elliptical film that demonstrates the joyful, naive, disjointed and often apathetic nature of human interaction and existence.

What unifies the episodes [in Favorites of the Moon] is a patient moral scourging of our greed and futile desires; but where the British would use satire, this opts for the French form of Tatiesque anarchy and fun. And fun it certainly is.

Iosseliani, a native of the former Soviet Georgia, chose Paris as the setting for his first non-Russian film, and the city has rarely looked so vibrantly alive as it does in this curious outsider’s view... [The characters'] lives intersect in unpredictable, complex, and ironic patterns. The closest reference point is, perhaps, Tati.

[Favorites of the Moon] is the kind of absurdist comedy that one either takes to immediately or finds insufferably arch, which is pretty much the way I feel about it. You can laugh with it, if you're willing to believe that the film makers are as witty as they keep announcing without demonstrating, or you can be awestruck by the amount of care, money and talent that appear to have been spent for so little effect.