81
Metascore
13 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90Screen DailyAllan HunterScreen DailyAllan HunterJessica Beshir’s hypnotic, immersive and very beautiful documentary marks an impressive feature debut.
- 90The New York TimesNicolas RapoldThe New York TimesNicolas RapoldUnifying this elliptical canvas is the sense of a contemplative search, which can also mean an escape from an altered homeland, perhaps to dull what feels lost.
- 90Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleLos Angeles TimesRobert AbeleIn eschewing directness of intent for the artful massaging of space, sound and rhythm, Beshir’s film — a very personal project for the Mexican Ethiopian director, which she shot over 10 years — stakes a richer claim to our sense of the place and the effect of its most lucrative crop.
- 88RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyRogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyThe film weaves a spell with its rhythms, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, all accompanied by a vivid and haunting sound design.
- 85Film ThreatJosiah TealFilm ThreatJosiah TealLeaving a traditional narrative structure in the dust, Beshir uses breathtaking cinematography to bring you into the Horn of Africa. The movie is moving poetry about the struggles in khat fields and Ethiopia itself.
- 83The Film StageJordan RaupThe Film StageJordan RaupJournalistic in the sense that it feels like Beshir has compiled stray quotes, fleeting snapshots, and loosely connected thoughts from a journal into a dreamy cinematic form, Faya Dayi becomes more breathtaking as these images and ideas coalesce.
- 76Paste MagazineDom SinacolaPaste MagazineDom SinacolaLike RaMell Ross’s Hale County This Morning, This Evening, Faya Dayi wanders lovely, liminal spaces between narrative and fairytale, between documentary film and something looser, something personally vérité.
- 75Slant MagazineJake ColeSlant MagazineJake ColeThe documentary’s aesthetics strikingly channel the euphoric feelings induced by Ethopia’s top cash crop.
- 75IndieWireTambay ObensonIndieWireTambay ObensonFaya Dayi is a film that invites the mind and soul with its visual grandeur, and keeps the viewer engaged with a tension and mystery that seems to be lurking beneath its surface. It’s familiar yet foreign — a world one must at once surrender to, yet be careful to not completely lose oneself in.