88
Metascore
18 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 91The PlaylistJoe BlessingThe PlaylistJoe BlessingA poetic meditation on film, history, and loss, Three Minutes – A Lengthening gives a glimpse into a lost world and then unpacks just how much can be learned from that brief fragment.
- 90The Hollywood ReporterCaryn JamesThe Hollywood ReporterCaryn JamesAn eloquent meditation on loss, memory and how film can shape them.
- 90VarietyAlissa SimonVarietyAlissa SimonStigter’s method is simultaneously creative and forensic, but never sentimental. Working with a digitized copy that bears the blemishes left by the deterioration of the original celluloid, she conjures up exactly what she declares in the subtitle: a lengthening.
- 90Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangLos Angeles TimesJustin ChangThree Minutes: A Lengthening is a snapshot, a memorial, a knotty philosophical detective story and a devastating account of Nazi atrocities. It’s also an extended rumination on the illusory, entropic nature of the cinematic medium itself.
- 85SlashfilmChris EvangelistaSlashfilmChris EvangelistaThree Minutes – A Lengthening is not a ghost story, but it still feels haunting.
- 83IndieWireNicholas BarberIndieWireNicholas BarberIt grips the attention from start to finish.
- 83The A.V. ClubJordan HoffmanThe A.V. ClubJordan HoffmanThe imagery runs backward and forward, gets freeze-framed, goes through different filters, and is blown up, reduced, diced, and re-assembled like playing cards. But director Bianca Stigter fully commits to this formalist dare—and it pays off tremendously.
- 75Movie NationRoger MooreMovie NationRoger MooreThe impression “Three Minutes” leaves is that it’s more probing than moving, more of a mystery to be unraveled than an emotional journey into who and what were lost. It’s still quite worthwhile as history and as a meditation on tragedy and the nature of filmed memory.
- 65TheWrapElizabeth WeitzmanTheWrapElizabeth WeitzmanThe truth is that even at 71 minutes much of this film feels padded, as though Stigter couldn’t let go of the subject but also wasn’t sure how to expand it further. Because Kurtz’s concept is so moving, however, the film retains much of the power he brought to his book.