Critics reviews

Despite the deprivation this is not an austere film and there are even moments of dream-like glimpses of the past, though unhappily they tend to be of the too on-the-nose variety.

[T]he writer/director has a real gift for a sense of place and this largely works in creating a vivid portrait of this region. So much so that you almost wish it would step outside Pio’s point of view to let us get to know some of the supporting players more.

A brutally honest and unflinching portrayal of a Romani community, The Ciambra is a powerful coming-of-age story that ventures where rarely any other films dare to go.

There is something euphoric, but also sad, about watching an unschooled performer dominate through some mysterious and serendipitous rightness in the matching of face, performer and material.

La Ciambra delves into the way Europe’s geography and social structure have been profoundly, irreversibly, modified by immigration and population displacement. It is one of the rare films that addresses the less visible issue of trans-European migration, in particular, the increasingly vexing “problem” of the Romani – that no country wants.

[Y]ou can't quite escape the ethics of the situation as you watch... The film has plenty of memorable moments but worry about the long-term outcome for Pio the person, rather than Pio the character, also lingers on.

The director avoids turning this into some form of misery tourism, which would be a real risk in less adept hands: yet the story is told with such a uniform tone that it’s hard to remain emotionally engaged.

“A Ciambra” is intimate and documentary-like, approaching and then backing away from larger issues of marginalized and immigrant communities, showing rather than preaching...

“A Ciambra” could have been more concise and better structured — a true sense of dramatic tension arises only in the late going. But the director’s connection to his characters and setting is never in doubt.

Carpignano's approach is not going to sit well with viewers who want a story reliant on outcomes. But viewers interested in a rarely-documented side of life will get caught up in this frank portrayal of a boy who's not sure how to be a man.

The measure of the success of a film like A Ciambra isn't necessarily that it departs from a historically successful aesthetic program; it's perhaps more to do with the degree to which a filmmaker undertakes to become embedded in the world that's being explored. In Carpignano's case, that embedding seems absolute and very intense.

The result is busy, murky, and remote. It doesn't have the leftie political clarity of Ken Loach, the purposeful intensity of the Dardenne brothers, or even the character development of Ramin Bahrani's early features. The past 70 years have produced no shortage of good and interesting films inspired by the socially conscious tough-luck realism of gritty post-war Italian cinema. Despite its naturalistic setting and cast, A Ciambra turns out to be strictly run-of-the-mill.