Oblivion (El Olvido) throws its net across a considerable range of human behavior and bittersweet survival stories, and the result is a wise and beautiful documentary from Dutch filmmaker Heddy Honigmann.
Comment
05/29/09
Oblivion (2008)
93
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:15
Fresh:14
Rotten:1
Average Rating:7.6/10
Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins
Genre: Education/General Interest
US Box Office: $0
Synopsis: Heddy Honigmann (The Underground Orchestra) examines the lives of everyday people in the Peruvian capital of Lima, set against the country's turbulent history. Street performers, bartenders, and... [More]
Director: Heddy Honigmann
Reviews for Oblivion
1 - 15 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Slumming, South American-style!
04/21/09
The point of Oblivion is to rescue some sense of the beauty and individuality of people who live in a place most of us only hear about when it suffers an earthquake or a military coup.
04/17/09
Prolific filmmaker Heddy Honigmann, the champion of the little people, is back and in fine form.
04/17/09
Oblivion contains more than its share of indelible images and memorable characters.
04/16/09
An honest, captivating, quietly poignant and illuminating documentary.
04/15/09
Oblivion is a movie so suffused with feeling for its human subjects that when a man starts weeping, you don’t feel dirty about watching his tears fall.
04/15/09
Top CriticPoetic in its structure and humane in its storytelling, Oblivion is poignant, filled with interviews that effortlessly speak volumes.
04/15/09
This astonishing documentary takes a contemplative look at Peru’s recent political history via members of the service and street classes who reside in the capital city of Lima.
04/15/09
The result is a tender, poetically aimless movie by someone who no longer dwells among these stoic people, but feels like she might be the only one who remembers them.
04/14/09
a tone poem of emptiness.
04/14/09
Asserts that, under a tragicomic two centuries of home misrule, the most devalued citizens of Lima have failed to be consigned to the limbo ("el olvido") the oligarchy has constructed for them.
04/14/09
Unstinting but lyrical documentary on the costs of poverty in Peru, especially on the children who scramble for coins on the streets of Lima as they ply their trades as gymnasts, jugglers, musicians and shoeshine boys.
04/14/09
Like all of Heddy Honigmann's films, Oblivion, set in her native Lima, Peru, obliterates any previously held notions we might have had about the subjects she confronts, which, in this case, are intentional forgetfulness and the forgotten of Lima.
04/10/09
Oblivion maintains its focus on Peru but its examination of corruption renders its insights universal.
03/24/09
1 - 15 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
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