35
Metascore
7 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 50Slant MagazineSlant MagazineMuch of the documentary plays like a moderately well produced but tediously uncritical making-of feature that could easily have been included on the opera's DVD release.
- 50VarietyRonnie ScheibVarietyRonnie ScheibColburn's focus is so single-mindedly laudatory that the whole collaborative process is reduced to people either helping or hindering the visiting genius.
- 40Time OutTime OutHelnwein's elaborate vision bumps up against practical concerns and meets with resistance - a conflict that this superficial portrait glosses over almost as much as it reduces Helnwein to simply being a determined, intransigent creative type.
- 40Village VoiceVillage VoiceWhile the opera nonetheless soars with its acrobatic choreography of refugee displacement, this documentary about it suffers some dramatic slackness from the inevitable drawing board tedium of performance preparation.
- The backstage commentary circles around the bailiwick of a production designer and frustrations over Mr. Helnwein's literal interpretations. But they are rarely juicy or pursued in depth, and platitudes abound (with the exception of a matter-of-fact lighting designer named Bambi).
- 40The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckThe Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckThe film never achieves any real depth in its unabashedly admiring portrait. What might have made a mildly interesting short feels vastly attenuated even with its brief 72-minute running time.
- 25New York PostKyle SmithNew York PostKyle SmithThis infomercial for Helnwein's work as designer for an Israeli opera called "The Child Dreams" doesn't tell us a lot about how opera comes together, but it is accidentally revealing about its subject.