Just when Alberto's situation begins to feel palpably fraught, the filmmaker's aesthetics pull you away when they should deepen the crisis.

| Aug 17, 2018

Cocote is as clear as day and as bewildering as a nightmare, as chaotic as a whirlwind and as calm as the Caribbean Sea.

| Aug 3, 2018

A challenging piece of art, but the challenges yield great rewards.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 3, 2018

It's not a problem that "Cocote" is a fevered art film, but the movie is slipshod arty - a lurching, fragmentary tone poem that relies on too much patching together in the editing room.

| Aug 3, 2018

Cocote tells a relatively simple story in willfully obscure, opaque fashion. While the pic features many intriguing elements and often proves visually stunning, it ultimately feels a trial to endure.

| Aug 2, 2018

I wish I were able to give it an enthusiastic endorsement.

| Aug 2, 2018

Getting one's bearings isn't impossible; it's like divining the trick of a Sunday crossword. But Cocote isn't purely academic. It's alternately clinical and sensual.

| Aug 1, 2018

Gorgeous, restlessly creative hybrid fiction combines ethnographic documentary with improvised drama to explore a clash of two religious identities.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 29, 2018

It's hard not to be annoyed by a competent and confident film that is deliberately alienating, yet this accomplished debut from the Dominican Republic is just that.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 27, 2018

There is a palpable, intentional artistry in it - though its one that makes the film challengingly opaque.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 26, 2018

A story seeking coherence? Yes. That may be the point. The hero's own mind circles, dithers, perambulates. He's a Hamlet pondering the kill.

| Jul 25, 2018

Tough going but entirely unique.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 25, 2018

Nelson Carlo de Los Santos's first fiction feature is a dazzling collage of styles and approaches in which every scene feels different from the one that came before.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 27, 2018