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Carnage

EMAILPRINTWellspring Media

Carnage reviews
71
N/A User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 19 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 0 votes
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Foreign

Written by: Delphine Gleize

Directed by: Delphine Gleize

Release Date:
Theatrical: September 5, 2003
DVD: February 17, 2004

Running Time: 130 minutes, Color

Origin: France / Belgium / Spain / Switzerland

Language(s): French / Spanish / Italian (with English subtitles)

Summary

RATING: Not Rated

Starring Chiara Mastroianni, Ángela Molina, Lio, Lucia Sanchez, Esther Gorintin, Marilyne Even, Clovis Cornillac, and Jacques Gamblin

In a wildly original, intertwining story that almost defies classification, Carnage traces the bizarre, often magical effects a 1,000-pound Andalusian bull has on a disparate group of characters. (Wellspring)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

San Francisco Chronicle Jonathan Curiel

A wonderful French offering whose jumping-off point is a bullfight.

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90

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

What emerges is an astonishing debut, unlike anything else you'll see this year.

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88

Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder

Confidently directed and tightly constructed, Carnage announces the presence of a fresh, powerful directorial mind with each frame.

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88

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

An amazingly self-assured movie, it percolates with themes and ideas, all held together by the gift of the bull's parts.

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88

Premiere Aaron Hillis

A truly remarkable and compassionate debut from a savvy, self-confident filmmaker. No bull.

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80

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Ms. Gleize, through a series of oblique, half-comic scenes and meticulous, rhyming visual compositions, offers up an elegant, discursive essay on carnality and carnivorousness -- on sex, death, meat and the ravening hunger for companionship.

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80

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Carnage is a film about the violence of living, of finding and keeping a place in the world, and though it's a work of preternaturally sophisticated philosophy from a director who's barely out of her 20s, this beautiful, bizarre movie could function quite well without its capable screenplay.

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80

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

There's undeniable pathos to many of these encounters, and because the director has a wonderful feel for color and knows how to throw a frame around the world, there's also unmistakable beauty.

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80

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

A gorgeously morbid meditation on the interconnectivity of life.

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78

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

Ill-suited to casual viewing. But its challenges are worthwhile, and the gifted Gleize is one to watch.

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75

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Funny, sad, and tinged with magic realism, this ambitious comedy-drama is as original as it is nimbly directed.

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70

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

Gleize establishes her multiple plotlines fairly cleanly, though once disentangled, the individual stories don't offer enough incident to be meaningful. They don't mean that much all put together, either, but Carnage is still highly watchable, thanks to Gleize's keen eye.

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70

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Dead flesh is a ruling motif, but Gleize's airy, observant personality makes even the graphic dismemberment of the bull, scored with flamenco stomps, buoyant and fascinating.

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70

Chicago Reader Staff (Not credited)

This is certainly well executed, with a sense of fate and fancy akin to Pedro Almodovar's, but its glibness began to wear on me after the agonizing death of a Great Dane was played for laughs.

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70

TV Guide Ken Fox

The film becomes a complex tissue of intersecting lives, but Gleize handles each developing story with amazing ease, and the fabulist touches are the icing on a very tasty cake.

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63

Boston Globe Ty Burr

It's a treat, nevertheless, to watch the daughter of Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni in a rare leading role. Chiara Mastroianni has her mother's hair and face with her father's sorrowful eyes stuck smack in the middle, and she moves as if conscious of the weight of her genetic splendor.

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60

The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck

The episodes are uninteresting and the characters one-dimensional. Unlike the multicharacter tapestries of such filmmakers as Robert Altman and Paul Thomas Anderson, the pretentious whole here is ultimately less than the sum of the parts.

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30

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

The whole is just a wan rejection of traditional story, as well as a weak slap at those who still bother to attack the story tradition.

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30

Variety David Rooney

Audience patience undergoes a far more brutal butchering than anything onscreen in Delphine Gleize's wildly over-reaching feature debut, Carnage.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 0.0 (out of 10) based on 0 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

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