Critics reviews

Despite the compelling beauty of these fiction-bits, the documentary aspect of A Bigger Splash remains central to its effects.

This unusual and sometimes unsettling film is a kind of staged documentary that could not have been made without the cooperation of people who were going though genuine challenges in their life at the time.

“A Bigger Splash” is both meandering and forthright. Hockney allowed the British-born, American-trained Hazan remarkable access.

A Bigger Splash is an awkward oddity, which, like many an unformed queer thing, has grown more interesting with age.

At one level the result is impressionistic, as fragmentary reportage or reconstructions were assembled to capture the essence of the artist’s life and working techniques. At another level, the exploration was surrealist, as the film realized dreams or took the spectator into the other reality of the artist’s vision, his paintings.