The Tale of the King Crab, despite seeming slightly derivative or slow, is -- in tune with the protagonist -- intoxicating. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 20, 2022

This movie shot on striking locations in unusually rich, delicate color is at once bluntly realistic—the lives depicted being mostly poor, rough, and uneducated—and eccentrically parabolic.

| May 31, 2022

This beautifully filmed arthouse story meanders its way across the screen and invites us to think about life’s meaning and what is important. It also shows us that violence solves nothing.

| May 26, 2022

Unusual and memorable at the same time. I found it really quite refreshing.

| May 10, 2022

For the most part, the filmmakers are after their own period-thick blend: how respect for oral tradition and love for a ripping yarn can be a gateway to invention and allusion.

| Apr 29, 2022

The Tale of King Crab is a thoughtfully self-aware appreciation, not only of a specific legend, but also of why legends matter in the first place.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 29, 2022

By turns beautiful and ugly, occasionally infuriating in its obfuscation and disconnect, always slow and intriguing...

| Apr 28, 2022

The filmmakers stated that the bones of the Luciano legend were very sparse and so they made the rest of it up. Surely they could have done a better job.

| Apr 26, 2022

The Tale of King Crab is thus a singular cinematic work that brings folklore to life less to provide a morality lesson than a fictionalized historical account of the places economic inequality pushed impoverished men who had already forsaken their souls.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Apr 26, 2022

A beautifully shot, fable-like enigma, featuring a stunning performance by Gabriele Silli.

| Original Score: B+ | Apr 25, 2022

A more naturalistic narrative than might be expected, The Tale of King Crab’s eccentricities and vistas are the gold-dust of a dryly told tall tale, with a surly, enigmatic protagonist.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 25, 2022

A rambling yarn with moments of intense focus, this film will appeal to fans of late 19th Century adventure novels and more recent South American magical realism.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 21, 2022

The Tale of King Crab never actually reaches its primal aim of telling us how stories twist within themselves, and through time they change and become more and more personal

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 20, 2022

An adventure story at its core, the film balances tones with great effect and, usually, an effective grace.

| Apr 20, 2022

A film that so clearly takes delight in the unfolding of a story and the unpacking of an enigmatic character is refreshing in an arthouse landscape where such narrative qualities are often relegated to secondary concerns.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 19, 2022

Outside of one unnecessary storytelling device, The Tale Of King Crab is never melodramatic and always moves at its own pace.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 18, 2022

It never quite comes together.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 18, 2022

I implore you to join Luciano on his journey. You will be enchanted.

| Apr 16, 2022

A wild and compelling work that simultaneously evokes the influence of such disparate filmmakers as Terrence Malick, Werner Herzog, and Sergio Leone.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 15, 2022

While the elliptical approach yields uneven narrative momentum, the film remains visually striking and consistently captivating.

| Apr 15, 2022