Nonsensically titled, formally accomplished and richly engrossing ...

| Sep 1, 2017

The film's 176-minute length will tax patience, but that almost seems the point in a story about how truth is arrived at and/or denied.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 13, 2017

It is a bit of a slog, clocking in at almost three hours, but those of us with quarrelsome kin will find much to relate to.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 12, 2017

What's exciting in Sieranevada -- or, again, depending on your aesthetic preference, "taxing" -- is how the raucous, multi-directional dramaturgy keeps us from apprehending the true shape of the film for most of its duration.

| Oct 11, 2016

The barely muffled anger and violence of the social ills at Sieranevada's core hint at but never reveal the larger political chaos seemingly waiting to erupt just off camera.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 29, 2016

For better and worse, the film itself, which was inspired by the 40-day wake for Puiu's own father, feels similarly random and personal.

| Original Score: B- | May 20, 2016

Puiu scoops up storylines and arguments and revelations armful by messy armful and ... Sieranevada becomes by turns pit-of-stomach-sad, flight-of-fancy funny and pin-in-heart moving.

| Original Score: A- | May 17, 2016

Romanian writer-director Cristi Puiu makes films that are, in the best sense, endurance tests.

| Original Score: 7.9/10 | May 17, 2016

While the film may be ponderous going for the vast majority of moviegoers, if only because characters talk and talk and talk, but seldom ever speak the truth... Sieranevada gives audiences plenty to sink their teeth into over the hours and days to come.

| May 13, 2016

Sieranevada is a monumental portrait of a family and a society ripped apart by the mistrust that comes from a violent and perilous history, clinging to memories that create rifts instead of healing them.

| May 13, 2016

The good news is that it's still a top-drawer New Wave film, familiar in the best ways while offering fascinating insights into human nature, identity and foibles.

| May 13, 2016

A claustrophobic, quietly absurd family portrait.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 13, 2016

It's a highly persuasive portrait of family life, replete with intimacies, special alliances, tensions, resentments and reconciliations, but also a revealing study of how that may reflect developments in the wider world.

| May 12, 2016

Those familiar with Puiu's work might not be thrown by his patient approach, but the ponderous technique takes no prisoners for the uninitiated.

| Original Score: B- | May 12, 2016

It earns respect and a cumulative awe in its intently amused vision of reality: it's a commanding and intellectually gratifying piece of work.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 12, 2016

The proceedings are claustrophobic, intense and alienated - often brilliant, sometimes slightly redundant.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 12, 2016