Tarnation

Village Voice J. Hoberman

A tale of sadness and hysteria so raw that it bleeds.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Caouette has used art, wit and a huge heart to forge his experiences into an unqualified masterpiece.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Harrowing, extremely disturbing at times, but brought to the screen in dazzling pop-art images that make the movie's grim content very much worth watching.

Slate David Edelstein

A collage of pain that breaks over you like a wave. Every second you can feel the cost to Caouette of what he's showing: The sounds and the images are like a pipeline from his unconscious to the screen.

Chicago Reader Meredith Brody

It's something of a masterpiece: a confessional experimental documentary with echoes, both conscious and unconscious, of filmmakers from Andy Warhol to John Cassavetes, Stan Brakhage to David Lynch.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

A masterpiece.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It is a remarkable film, immediate, urgent, angry, poetic and stubbornly hopeful.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Painfully beautiful autobiographical kaleidoscope.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Caouette lifts his story clear out of the victimized whine that bogs down so many confessional memoirs and offers the viewer instead an intimate look inside his ravaged yet loving head, at once street-smart and haloed by the naiveté of a young saint.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Certainly one of the strangest and most interesting movies of the year, and I suspect that in years to come a number of other strange and interesting movies will show traces of its influence.

The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden

Layering soundtrack and visuals in an intricate collage of rich emotional texture, he (Jonathan Caouette) displays an exhilarating talent.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

It is incomplete, contradictory, as multifaceted (and as brilliant) as a diamond.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

You may not want to hang with the haunted Caouettes, but the movie is so compelling, it doesn't give you a choice.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

A remarkable and remarkably compelling document.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Sometimes people grow up sane despite the best efforts of society to drive them mad. This is the case for filmmaker Jonathan Caouette.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The movie is such an intense, disturbing and exhilarating experience, even five more minutes might have felt like too much.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole

An astonishing multimedia diary.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The result is a film that defies description. I'd call it some kind of miracle.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Tarnation represents a breakthrough in the possibilities of the personal film as a mix of poetry and journalism. It's also harrowing as hell.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Watching Jonathan Caouette's amazing autobiographical documentary Tarnation is like descending into a pop-music, underground-movie hell and heaven, the shattered and shattering landscape of a living body and mind.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

By all odds, Tarnation should have been an unwatchable, masochistic morass, but Caouette's love for the broken Renee--which is the true subject of the film--is awe-inspiring.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Caouette's shattering Tarnation represents a landmark in personal filmmaking: It finally realizes the digital dream of a raw, unsanctioned glimpse into the soul.

Empire David Parkinson

For all the courage and ingenuity of this extraordinary film, it's clear that Caouette has actually resolved few issues and that his life is still very much a work in progress.

Dallas Observer Melissa Levine

In this case, the subject and director are one and the same, and the result is a degree of intimacy--really of rawness--rarely achieved in film.

San Francisco Chronicle Walter Addiego

An impassioned documentary about a damaged American family, includes moments that seem to cross the line of what is emotionally acceptable to show onscreen.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Caouette's fractured history is imbued with heart-crushing sincerity.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

One of those documentaries about a family train wreck that makes you wonder how people consented to have their tawdry laundry washed so publicly.

Variety Dennis Harvey

Getting so close to real-life mental illness, via footage that spans many years, renders Tarnation a uniquely potent experience.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Caouette has opened up a case history vividly, but he has left us without any conclusions, not even with much enlightening empathy. Something more than truth--dare one say "mere truth"?--is needed.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

The movie is a daunting blend of head trip, cinéma vérité, music video, and auto-therapy.

TV Guide Ken Fox

A bold, painful memoir that finds an innovative middle-ground between conventional documentary and a homemade, home-movie collage.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

I reckon that for everyone who's enthralled by the film there will be others who wish they'd heard about it rather than seen it.