In its almost four hours, Hu builds his cinematic debut on the basis of a dense and stylized narrative that, at a contemplative pace, never loses its nihilistic tone when it comes to interrogating the existential suffering. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 7/10 | Dec 7, 2023

I can’t recommend it as a vital use of four hours, but I’m not mad I saw it; there’s context for this film, regular flickers of not-quite-raw promise in a direction that will no longer be pursued.

| Jan 5, 2023

Episode 44: Ash Is Purest White / Long Day's Journey into Night / An Elephant Sitting Still

| Original Score: 84/100 | Oct 4, 2021

The idea of using an immobile circus elephant (never seen) as a wised out Buddha who silently observes human follies play out around him as some sort of metaphor for happiness/salvation has a direct lineage link to Werkmeister Harmonies.

| Feb 13, 2021

While the film toes the line of miserabilism, Hu's commitment to intimacy makes it feel more like an emotional and psychological audit than a cudgel

| Jul 30, 2020

The most audacious debut feature from mainland China since Wang Bing's nine-hour documentary West of the Tracks (2002).

| Mar 10, 2020

If you do not, at least once across the running time, think to yourself, "why is it so LONG?", the film is not doing its job properly.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 30, 2020

It's as if the film was conjured from thin air, gorgeous, elemental, and tortured; Hu's consciousness made manifest and brought into being by sheer force of will.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 10, 2019

Despite its melancholia and tonal rigor, An Elephant Sitting Still exudes so much elegance, frame precision and ingenuity. Hu Bo's first and last feature is destined to have a place in cinema.

| Nov 21, 2019

I wanted to connect with it, but I am the monster who could not get into the four-hour tragic movie.

| Sep 24, 2019

In looking at life in northern China, Bo presents a society that has lost its way, downtrodden, selfish and living in isolation in an industrial landscape devoid of natural beauty...yet for all the film's depressing story lines, Bo achieves hope...

| Original Score: B+ | Aug 4, 2019

Hu takes time to let the camera linger on his characters' faces, capturing their troubled psyche... Often, their reticence conveys depths that words deem unnecessary.

| Original Score: 4 Ripples | Jun 20, 2019

Beautiful, mysterious, lyrical and somehow relaxing in spite of its sadness and persistent instances of violence, there's a hallucinatory aura that surrounds Hu's film, thanks primarily to the lyricism of his camera.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 24, 2019

'An Elephant Sitting Still' is a letter of rage and sadness, of a depressed and cynical soul in a terrible context. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | May 9, 2019

The shaggy tale eventually rewards patience with a gently cathartic finish.

| May 9, 2019

The unforgettable final shot, where life is confirmed as a frustrating but beautiful trip back and forth, puts the finishing touch to a monumental work. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 8, 2019

An imposing film not only in the orchestration of its complex shots in continuity, but also in the precision of frames. [Full Review in Spanish]

| May 3, 2019

This monumental first film is not only a significant debut for world cinema, but also a tragic farewell. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Apr 29, 2019

Economic struggle, crime, intimidation in a variety of forms, and, above all, the lack of affection and joie de vivre, are factors strongly influencing the course of the story.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Apr 1, 2019

[Hu] has given us a triumph of bold sociopolitical critique and intimate human portraiture, and a reminder that you rarely encounter the one without the other.

| Mar 21, 2019