Popular reviews

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  Review by damosuzuki ★½ 6

  earlier today, someone quite randomly left a really pissy comment on the very brief review i did of this short early last year. apparently they thought my comments were a bit stupid!

  i didn't remember the film at all, so i decided to give it another honest effort. maybe i missed something! i'm capable of being wrong.

  nope, i hated it. it's droning and dreary & completely up its own bum.

  & it's full of absurd strawmanning about globalization and trade.

  the only way african nations are going to escape from the complete, comprehensive poverty that has dominated all of human history is to do what has been done by the nations that have escaped that fate: adopt capitalism & free trade. there…

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  Review by Justin ✌️ ★★★★

  "To this day, I still wonder secretly what our lives would have been like had our parents not decided to lay foundations in the belly of the master."

  I think it's most fair to rate/review this quadrilogy as a singular work - you can watch the whole thing in about 40 minutes.

  Films like this inhabit a unique and unconventional space more like a fully realized art piece than a traditional movie. It's a cohesion of imagery, music, prose, and intimate self-expression that's better approached as "a trip to the museum." Knowing you're in the middle of "an exhibition" makes the entire thing a lot more palatable.

  That said, the series inhabits the same moody spaces as "Last and First…

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  Review by Will Klein (StarBoy1701) ★★½

  A great soundtrack and stunning cinematography don't save these series of shorts for me (of which I'm bundling all 4 into this one reivew). I REALLY like the world that's implied through the images and voiceover narration, but this kinda thing really needs a story to guide us through this world otherwise it ends up feeling empty.

  2017 Ranked

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  Review by damosuzuki ★½

  i don't really know what people get out of stuff like this.

  i guess i'm happy that it's there for them, but it leaves nothing with me.

  i picked up a hint of anti-trade & anti-economic freedom talk in here, so i don't think i'll be watching relics 1-3 any time soon.

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  Review by ZenoWeevil ★★

  Unadulterated screed is always a tiresome watch, whatever your sympathies may be and however justified the author’s position may be.

  Liked the soundtrack though.

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  Review by Hakuin ★ 2

  None of what ails the world today (climate change most of all) will be solved by anything but globalization, cooperation, and trade. Certainly not by retreating towards identity of nation, race and tradition. This is just a pamphlet read over images of nature, resting on the exact same instincts that are propagated by the likes of Erdogan and Putin and Orban and Trump and their ilk - just because you are of the left and wrapping it into half-digested anti-colonialist tropes doesn't make it any better. Identitarian hogwash.

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  Review by Andthenwedanced

  A short in Criterions serie Afrofuturism.

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  Review by SankaraFilms ★★★★★

  Relic 0-3 is a heart heavy journey into the bleak and grueling (capitalist, anti-black, xenophobic, patriarchal) realities of the West for the African diaspora, past and present, accompanied by moody compositions and beautiful visuals. Seeing us in space suits never gets old.

  Lyrically, these films are devastating. The distillation of colonization into very concise essays was so good.

  There are black people in the future 🚀🖤

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  Review by Austin King ★★★½

  Urgent, meaningful sci-fi. Incredible worldbuilding and precise social commentary.

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  Review by Auteur ★

  Dude, next time just write an essay. There are four of these films, and they are all terrible. The narration is poorly recorded and uninformative, the droning score is as basic and repetitive as can be, and the images have nothing to do with what's being said. I could spend an hour outside recording on my phone, fire up GarageBand, and find some failed Masters thesis online on whatever topic I want to narrate over it. And since they are indistinguishable from each other, this review shall suffice for all of them.

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  Review by David ★½

  A couple of good lines but not great overall. Visuals got kind of boring sometimes (and overexposed). Soundtrack grew to be a vaguely annoying droning throb. Despite my efforts, I couldn’t help but zone out some of the dialogue.

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  Review by Optical Noise

  This is one of those instances where the cinematography looks almost impossibly clear, though I think more poetic voiceover throughout might fit better instead of becoming increasingly on the nose.