| 90 |
Salon.com
One of the best films of the year.
|
| 88 |
New York Post
Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe and the Marquis de Sade (interesting combination, no?).
|
| 88 |
TV Guide
Svankmajer has crafted his finest live-action feature to date.
|
| 83 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Svankmajer's nihilistic story isn't for everyone, but he skillfully manages its disturbing execution in ways no one else could, and he brings it across in a darkly comedic way that encourages simultaneous laughter, horror, and thought. If that isn't art, what is?
|
| 75 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The film is imaginative but ugly, with bodily functions an unending source for grotesque and revolting imagery.
|
| 70 |
The Hollywood Reporter
Richard James Havis
It's a fully formed film which transcends polemic by an intelligent use of the imagination.
|
| 67 |
Austin Chronicle
Its view of mankind is unkind, to say the least, but any race that can produce such remarkably garish gore as this is perhaps salvageable somehow, someday.
|
| 63 |
Chicago Tribune
While Lunacy leaves you with the impression that Svankmajer is more expressive with cutlets than he is with his atypically human-dominated dreamscape, some of the images are doozies.
|
| 63 |
Boston Globe
At nearly two hours Lunacy becomes repetitive, at first ingeniously and then with a slowly dulling edge. The meat parade ceases to shock.
|
| 60 |
Los Angeles Times
Mark Olsen
For all its visual surprises and visceral shocks, Lunacy is still the kind of film that is easier to admire than it is to actually like.
|
| 50 |
San Francisco Chronicle
While dinner and a movie is in theory a great idea, I'd avoid eating before taking in Lunacy.
|
| 50 |
LA Weekly
Lunacy feels programmatic, the repetitive working through of an idea that had me checking my watch.
|
| 50 |
Variety
Jay Weissberg
More moving animal parts and less human pontificating would make a stronger case for a tale already rich in imagery. Another drawback is Liska, too one-dimensional to stand against Triska's overpowering performance.
|
| 50 |
The New York Times
Mr. Svankmajer’s provocations skew toward the intellectual and the shivery rather than the pop and the visceral, and at his best, he doesn’t just get under your skin, but also deep in your head, too. Here, unfortunately, he does neither, despite some marvelous stop-motion animated sequences involving a literal moveable feast of severed animal tongues, loose eyeballs and errant brains.
|
| 50 |
Village Voice
Lunacy is dark, scary, and yucky--even by the Czech animator's own standards.
|
| 50 |
Chicago Reader
Weird anachronisms (cars, telephones, home computers) contribute to the craziness, but despite the copious imagination on display, this is a fairly long haul.
|
