L'Humanité

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Dumont's cinematic style is aggressively physical and philosophical at the same time. It irritates as many viewers as it inspires, but it prompts more thought than ordinary movies ever do.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

A beautiful and compassionate work, at once stark, sensory and spiritually grasping, that challenges us to forgive even the most monstrous sins.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

You probably won't feel comfortable when Humanité is over, but as you leave the theater you will feel more alive than when you entered.

Film.com Henry Cabot Beck

Audiences willing to wade knee deep in the muck and mire of the human abyss are advised to seek out Humanité at the local arthouse.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

A film of stunning impact.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Dumont's film is unfinished in the sense that some paintings are.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

It's a haunting, hypnotic film that exerts an escalating grip on the heart and the conscience.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A harsh, spellbinding tale.

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

Staggering, gorgeously ambiguous.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Not an easy film and is for those few moviegoers who approach a serious movie almost in the attitude of prayer.

Mr. Showbiz Michael Atkinson

Dumont's movie has virtually nothing wrong with it -- aside from the fact that it drives people crazy. Take the leap, but expect no answers. Just like life, as they say.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Confidently absurd.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

It ought to be seen, because it's a work of moral and spiritual mystery.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

Humanite isn't like any other film: It's uncompromising, eerily affecting and wildly unresolved.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

Frustrating, tedious and yet often compelling.

New York Post Hanna Brown

Maddeningly pretentious and often slow to the point of tedium, Humanite is also hauntingly original and truly strange.

Philadelphia Inquirer Desmond Ryan

While Dumont's movie has its striking scenes, it is doomed to a sense of lethargy and inertia by the kind of people it ponders and the context in which they are placed.

New York Daily News Other - Staff

Under that small but growing category of movies that break the mold but that no one but a masochist could sit through is Humanité.

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

If only the whole thing didn't collapse in on itself, and quickly become a parody of artistic reach and terminal folly.

TV Guide Ken Fox

This curiously empty film was awarded the Jury Prize at the 1997 Cannes film festival.

Time Richard Corliss

Don't ask us why this minimalist drama won prizes last year at Cannes or why it is getting raves in its U.S. release.