Avis des critiques

While not that outstanding, with its plot twists and directorial turns it was certainly more well-rounded and achieved than Alper's politically interesting yet pedantic sophomore effort, and an award would have been an encouraging nod toward South African film culture, which always seems on the cusp of something extraordinary.

The problem with The Endless River is not its set-up, but what happens in its final chapter, which belongs to Tiny. The idea of contriving a sort of ostensible happy ending for a tortured character smacks of Fassbinder in its reversing and revising of classic melodramatic conventions. But while the idea of hope rising from the ashes of tragedy might work on paper, in practice it undermines the severity of what has come before.

Any finality in this story is deeply uncertain - and the tantalising, abrupt conclusion will leave as many viewers seething as fascinated. This elliptical story about an unlikely rapport between two loners may not quite deliver what it seems to promise, but then writer-director Oliver Hermanus could reasonably counter that he never promised us anything specific in the first place.

[It's] a less disciplined affair than either of Hermanus' previous films, "Beauty" and "Shirley Adams." Its blood-streaked brand of devastated romanticism, moreover, will prove polarizing. Still, this is a substantial transitional work from South Africa's most vital new filmmaker in over a decade.