Malmberg's documentary is tender and intimate. Horgancamp is never treated or seen as a freak but a genuine folk artist with great imagination.

| Mar 21, 2021

Marwencol is a brilliant exploration of the elusive line that separates art from delusion.

| Aug 26, 2019

A fascinating portrait of an artist who didn't even know he was one that challenges its audiences' notions of art and reality by confronting them with a man who refuses to be pigeonholed.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 5, 2019

Malmberg hangs back, allowing the character of Hogancamp - rather than any contrivance or "plot" - to power the film.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 19, 2018

Extraordinary, astonishing, revealing, unique

| Sep 9, 2012

Truly inspiring

| Sep 9, 2012

The film is never flippant, never disrespectful and always approaches Mark's hobby with eyes wide open and no agenda other than fascinated admiration.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 8, 2012

| Original Score: 4/4 | Nov 24, 2011

Alternate realities help us work through issues, but might keep us from confronting the world

| Sep 30, 2011

By allowing his emerging post-trauma experience into his pretend kingdom, the man is reconstituting his self-consciousness, reclaiming the dignity of his whole mind, recovering his soul.

| Original Score: 82/100 | Aug 20, 2011

First-time director Jeff Malmberg does almost everything right in this stunningly empathetic documentary.

| Original Score: A- | Mar 13, 2011

Marwencol provides a deeply empathetic view of loneliness and powerful evidence of art as an outlet.

| Original Score: A | Mar 9, 2011

Speaks to the addictiveness, the catharsis, the unpredictability, and the eternity of the creative process.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Mar 4, 2011

A heartwrenching tale of wish fulfillment on a nearly molecular level...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 2, 2011

Marwencol is a mesmerizing documentary, and like Mark Hogancamp it continually surprises you. It may also be one of the best films you'll see all year.

| Original Score: 10/10 | Feb 10, 2011

Hogancamp didn't know he was creating art ... he was merely surviving, spinning stories for his sanity. In an era of 'look-at-me,' this type of agenda is as far away from our world as Marwencol itself.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Jan 18, 2011

Cinematically raw, untidy and sometimes positively odd, but it's also revealing, fascinating, unsettling and ultimately quite touching.

| Original Score: B+ | Jan 13, 2011

"Marwencol" is inspiring but also insightful because it refuses to gloss over complex, even discomfiting questions surrounding its endearing but troubled central character.

| Original Score: A- | Jan 6, 2011

Malmberg instead takes a gentle approach. He's patient and coaxing, and he lets Mark grow comfortable for the camera.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 4, 2011

Simultaneously hypnotic and unnerving, it asks some rather uncomfortable questions about the nature of art and the potential and limits of self-healing.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 28, 2010