Kendall makes his documentary memorable by resisting the urge to give crime center stage. Instead he focuses on the lives being quietly and doggedly built, even if at a great risk.

| Aug 8, 2018

Follow a humble yellow school bus as it is transformed into something joyous and defiant. It's like discovering that your grandma has another life as a secret agent.

| Apr 3, 2014

"La Camioneta" is a fascinating tale of determined individuals, and witnessing the transformation of the familiar into something new and useful is inspiring.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 6, 2014

I's well worth flagging down.

| Dec 30, 2013

La Camioneta wrings an extraordinary amount of humanity and geopolitical insight from its subject.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Nov 8, 2013

While The Counselor focused on the hopeless darkness, Mark Kendall finds the humanity that keeps the lights on while fully aware of what could await them down the road.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 5, 2013

It's well worth seeing.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 1, 2013

What makes "La Camioneta" so interesting is not so much the story that it tells as it is the way that Kendall has chosen to tell it.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 1, 2013

This sense of childlike wonder, and the respect accorded everyone involved in prolonging the bus's usefulness, are all the more impressive given that Kendall concludes with a sobering assessment of widespread civilian violence in Central America.

| Oct 31, 2013

The film retains an upbeat tone, spending time with the families of those who repair and decorate the buses, and those who operate them.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 11, 2013

A lyrical probing of a culture precariously balanced between past and future, making do in the present by renovating American hand-me-downs.

| Original Score: B+ | Sep 24, 2013

A short and easygoing film, this is a great movie to take in before dinner and one you should see when it comes to your local art house. Do not miss this bus.

| Aug 28, 2013

To climb aboard the colorful La Camioneta is to be taken on a lyrical journey - both anthropological and philosophical - to a place most of us would never be able to visit.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 21, 2013

Though Mark Kendall's documentary only alludes to the condition of "public" transportation in Guatemala, he gives us a clear feeling for the imminent danger of the job.

| Aug 2, 2013

The film wrings an almost bizarre amount of political, humanistic and spiritual substance out of this limited frame.

| Aug 1, 2013

La Camioneta succeeds by telling the bus's story while also expanding upon the different people who have now become a part of the bus's orbit.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 1, 2013

A work of sociological significance as well as a surprisingly personal account of a community that has ensured its survival by salvaging these buses.

| Original Score: B+ | Aug 1, 2013

An unexpected and fascinating aspect of migration in the Americas, viewed in intimate close-up.

| Aug 1, 2013

La Camioneta is a poetic, even dreamy, film that ultimately conveys the mystical sense of a transmigrated (mechanical) soul.

| Aug 1, 2013

As modest and farsighted as its cast of Guatemalans who make a living resurrecting discarded American school buses.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | May 30, 2013