X
  • 2017
  • Kino Lorber
  • 1 h 9 m
  • 2017
  • Kino Lorber
  • 1 h 9 m

Summary Italian visual artist Yuri Ancarani’s exquisite documentary enters the surreal world of wealthy Qatari sheikhs with a passion for amateur falconry. The opulence of this Middle Eastern gas state is on full display as the men race SUVs up and down sand dunes, fly their prized falcons around on private jets, and take their pet cheetahs out...

  • 2017
  • Kino Lorber
  • 1 h 9 m
  • 2017
  • Kino Lorber
  • 1 h 9 m

The Challenge

Metascore Generally Favorable Based on 7 Critic Reviews
69
User Score Available after 4 ratings
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Summary Italian visual artist Yuri Ancarani’s exquisite documentary enters the surreal world of wealthy Qatari sheikhs with a passion for amateur falconry. The opulence of this Middle Eastern gas state is on full display as the men race SUVs up and down sand dunes, fly their prized falcons around on private jets, and take their pet cheetahs out...

Where to Watch

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
Generally Favorable Based on 7 Critic Reviews
69
86% Positive
6 Reviews
14% Mixed
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews

  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews

Critic Reviews

 View All
Metascore
Generally Favorable Based on 7 Critic Reviews
69
86% Positive
6 Reviews
14% Mixed
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews

  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews
80
Dec 7, 2017
This movie is more like a gallery exhibition of moving portraits — each more astonishing than the last.
By Noel Murray FULL REVIEW
75
May 11, 2017
Here the organic and the frivolously material aren't oppositions or rivals, but partners in a spectacle for men's eyes only.
By Diego Semerene FULL REVIEW
70
Sep 7, 2017
Shot in rich, wide-screen color, with minimal camera movements (except when a small camera is attached to a falcon’s restless head) and almost no dialogue, it is detached almost to the point of abstraction.
By A.O. Scott FULL REVIEW
70
Sep 6, 2017
With its impeccably framed wide compositions, immersive long takes, and a cross-cutting narrative style that touches on the work of Matthew Barney—or, in a considerably more mainstream vein, Christopher Nolan—The Challenge feels like avant-garde art more than anything else.
By Kenji Fujishima FULL REVIEW
70
May 11, 2017
Italian artist Yuri Ancarani’s mostly-silent travelogue captures the Arabian peninsula without comment, its repetitive, dreamy imagery providing an insight to an age-old sport which plays out within the trappings of extreme wealth.
By Fionnuala Halligan FULL REVIEW
67
May 18, 2017
With this raw animal rush, you can understand the appeal of the sport, and how one might deign to spend part of a fortune on vicariously experiencing it. But it also demonstrates the ultimate hollowness of extreme consumption.
By Daniel Schindel FULL REVIEW
60
May 11, 2017
Loathe to mar his exquisite package with the least hint of vulgar commentary, Ancarani arrives at something that is at once luxuriously alluring and a little too like an advertisement for luxury products — dazzling, aloof, uncritical and fatuous.
By Dennis Harvey FULL REVIEW

User Reviews

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Details

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Production Company Atopic films, Dugong Films, Dugong Production, La Bête, Ring Film
Release Date Sep 8, 2017
Duration 1 h 9 m
Genres
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Awards

Cinema Eye Honors Awards, US
• 3 Nominations
Locarno International Film Festival
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
DocAviv Film Festival
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations

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