Pavilion Reviews
Top CriticShallow-focus photography sharpens the action and gives the seemingly banal images a sense of drama, capturing the urgency of childhood without resorting to histrionics.
If you're already on the movie's wavelength, it can be entrancing. If not, "Pavilion" may come off as flat and aimless.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Mr. Sutton tends toward quiet. And while his characters don't say a lot in these 70 ephemeral minutes, he says enough to make you wonder what's next.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
Slant Magazine
George Washington this isn't, but there's enough heft here that the comparison can be tastefully made.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Observant but not revealing, free-form but not quite experimental, the obliquely titled "Pavilion" is a mood piece in search of a construct.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
A cynical advisor told Sutton he should market his film as a documentary. That label would prepare potential viewers for Pavilion's lack of story, but it would make a lie of the movie's patient, finely drawn loveliness.
The beauty of the footage is undeniable, and the aimlessness never overstays its welcome as the film documents that strange stretch in our lives when nothing seems to matter more than the present moment, suspended in a sort of idle immortality.
Sutton's approach is observation: We're not so much pulled into a narrative as watching images float in ethereal atmospheres.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
