Rey

Andrew

A strangely wonderful cinematic journey through the psychological yearning of ambition and Quixotic daring to an increasingly incoherent world of primal myth, hallucinatory nightmare and feverish desire. The narrative progresses through free association and the stark power of the visually evolving images. The journey, even given its logical incoherence is burning with avant garde energy that is curiously mesmerising

Shane Ewen

Part film, part art installation, with papier-mache masks. Pieces together the historical fragments of the archive with artistic license and a terrific ambient soundtrack. Blow your mind.

G x

This is a really remarkable feature. There are arresting visuals throughout, some nightmarish, dreamy, others evoke a strong sense of place and wonder. The approach taken by Attalah works perfectly for the subject matter. A mysterious tale that I will want to revisit.

Renton47

Rey wants to blow your mind but it's more a contact high, goofy and endearing but we still await transcendence. It signposts a number of enticing reference points - Maddin, Herzog, Ruiz - but I suspect will always be related to them. Should we make 'spiritual biopic' a thing? Shouldn't they all be true to psychic terrain, dreams and their decay, rather than historical detail? 3.5

Superfrog

It wasn't the fIlm, it was me. I was just not ready for this film. Experimental image and plot lacked the old bourgeois coherence and the modern rythm that sustains my attention.

Zachariah Rigby

Lots of nice visuals, and some interesting ideas, but not enough substance for a 90 minute film. At the end I was left wondering what the film was actually "about", as none of the various themes that are briefly hung on the bare-bones narrative are developed in any way.

Kevin Matthews

Arresting visuals and a dreamy, fractured narrative don't quite make up for the feeling that many of the scenes are disconnected from one another in a way that keeps the film a bit too distant from the viewer.

Eriugena82

Quite uneven, sometimes slips into what seems like strangeness for it's own sake, but by the end the overall effect left me engaged with it. On the whole definitely an interesting film worth seeing if you like this sort of thing, at various points it put me in mind of Herzog (Aguirre/Fitzcarraldo), Wheatley's A Field in England, or the experimental films of Kenneth Anger.