Beautifully shot, confidently acted and endlessly curious about autonomy in the face of religious oppression.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 10, 2024

Kulumbegashvili’s film has been compared to Michael Haneke, but there’s also a strong current of Chantal Akerman in the film’s shot compositions and exploration of Yana’s tortured interiority.

| Feb 12, 2024

The direction is a confident debut that utilizes arresting imagery to create a stark and effective gaze.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Jun 5, 2022

While her emotional world remains hidden to us, we nonetheless feel an intimacy with Yana as she nestles herself into the vastness of her environment.

| Original Score: B+ | Feb 28, 2022

Writer-director Dea Kulumbegashvili made her feature debut with the focused and devastating Beginning, and I'm still in awe of what she accomplishes in it.

| Sep 9, 2021

Beginning is likely to be a divisive work, where some audiences will read into it deep emotional truths and others will be left cold.

| Aug 28, 2021

I find myself unable to dismiss a film that so resolutely interrogates its own methodologies, shaking up its dramatic, formal, and philosophical foundations in the process.

| Jul 12, 2021

As stunning a debut film as any I've seen

| Original Score: A | Jul 2, 2021

Beginning is told with great skill and considered economy by first-time feature director Déa Kulumbegashvili.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 20, 2021

Our extended considerations of organised religion, patriarchal society and how to be alone whistle through all the film's beautiful empty space, colouring and complicating it.

| Mar 23, 2021

It can be hard to divine much of a difference between beginnings and endings, but there's no mistaking the savage grace with which Kulumbegashvili blurs them together until they're one and the same.

| Original Score: B+ | Mar 3, 2021

Important themes but poor execution leads BEGINNING to leave much to be desired. A frustrating viewing experience that fails to sustain interest, it may resonate locally but will face difficulty in crossing over to global audiences.

| Original Score: C- | Mar 3, 2021

"Beginning" may be a tough watch, both in terms of subject matter and its filmic choices, but it's an acute portrait of a woman awakening.

| Original Score: A- | Mar 3, 2021

It's a film that deserves to be seen, be discussed and win awards.

| Mar 3, 2021

A haunting, dreamlike coda to the film shows Kulumbegashvili is a name worth keeping an eye on, as Beginning's biggest flaw is how it can't live up to the amount of potential brimming within it.

| Original Score: C+ | Mar 3, 2021

Complex ideas and emotions are presented in a strikingly composed film as bracing as it is unsettling.

| Feb 18, 2021

In contemplating the horror of a subservient life, Kulumbegashvili has created a quite extraordinarily compelling film.

| Feb 18, 2021

It is a seminal debut and original masterpiece. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 17, 2021

A tough and challenging film in which the camera stands as the soul and mirror of a battered life. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Feb 17, 2021

For those desperately seeking excellence in cinema, the movie is essential viewing.

| Feb 12, 2021