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Tarnation
Metascore
87 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 32 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 30 out of 32
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 32
  3. Negative: 0 out of 32
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  1. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    100
    It is a remarkable film, immediate, urgent, angry, poetic and stubbornly hopeful.
  2. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    100
    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.
  3. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    100
    Caouette has used art, wit and a huge heart to forge his experiences into an unqualified masterpiece.
  4. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    100
    A masterpiece.
  5. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: J. Hoberman
    100
    A tale of sadness and hysteria so raw that it bleeds.
  6. Slate
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    100
    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.
  7. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Meredith Brody
    100
    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.
  8. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    91
    Painfully beautiful autobiographical kaleidoscope.
  9. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Sheri Linden
    90
    Layering soundtrack and visuals in an intricate collage of rich emotional texture, he (Jonathan Caouette) displays an exhilarating talent.
  10. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    90
    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.
  11. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    90
    A remarkable and remarkably compelling document.
  12. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Dana Stevens
    90
    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.
  13. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Michael O'Sullivan
    90
    It is incomplete, contradictory, as multifaceted (and as brilliant) as a diamond.
  14. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Stephen Hunter
    90
    You may not want to hang with the haunted Caouettes, but the movie is so compelling, it doesn't give you a choice.
  15. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    89
    Sometimes people grow up sane despite the best efforts of society to drive them mad. This is the case for filmmaker Jonathan Caouette.
  16. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    88
    The result is a film that defies description. I'd call it some kind of miracle.
  17. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    88
    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.
  18. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    88
    The movie is such an intense, disturbing and exhilarating experience, even five more minutes might have felt like too much.
  19. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jami Bernard
    88
    Tarnation represents a breakthrough in the possibilities of the personal film as a mix of poetry and journalism. It's also harrowing as hell.
  20. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Stephen Cole
    88
    An astonishing multimedia diary.
  21. Empire
    Reviewed by: David Parkinson
    80
    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.
  22. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    80
    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.
  23. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Scott Tobias
    80
    Caouette's shattering Tarnation represents a landmark in personal filmmaking: It finally realizes the digital dream of a raw, unsanctioned glimpse into the soul.
  24. Dallas Observer
    Reviewed by: Melissa Levine
    80
    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.
  25. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    75
    Caouette's fractured history is imbued with heart-crushing sincerity.
  26. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Walter Addiego
    75
    An impassioned documentary about a damaged American family, includes moments that seem to cross the line of what is emotionally acceptable to show onscreen.
  27. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    75
    One of those documentaries about a family train wreck that makes you wonder how people consented to have their tawdry laundry washed so publicly.
  28. Variety
    Reviewed by: Dennis Harvey
    70
    Getting so close to real-life mental illness, via footage that spans many years, renders Tarnation a uniquely potent experience.
  29. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: Anthony Lane
    70
    The movie is a daunting blend of head trip, cinéma vérité, music video, and auto-therapy.
  30. The New Republic
    Reviewed by: Stanley Kauffmann
    70
    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.
  31. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    60
    A bold, painful memoir that finds an innovative middle-ground between conventional documentary and a homemade, home-movie collage.
  32. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    58
    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.
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User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
7.5 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 37 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 16 out of 24
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 24
  3. Negative: 3 out of 24
  1. SEBASTIAN
    10
    What would you feel if you have the possibilitie of watch your life on TV?. This film is astonishing
  2. ShaunaT.
    7
    This film has some good moments, but it is unfocused. there are long surreal clips that occur simultaneously and often nonsensically. it is not nearly a masterpiece, its too much of a mess. maybe its a critic's film, because i love unique and intelligent films and i was not turned off by the depressing subject matter, but i found this film to be amateur-ish and badly edited. some material was very irrelevant and self-indulgent.… Full Review »
  3. Scarlet
    10
    It was one of the best documenterys I've seen in a while plus it got my grade in school out of the trash can.
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