59
Metascore
11 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90Screen DailyLee MarshallScreen DailyLee MarshallNatural Light is a tough, slow film that makes demands on its audience – though much of the real horror is as just-off-screen for us as it is for Corporal Semetka. But it’s also an absorbing, beautifully crafted, thought-provoking addition to the new Hungarian cinematic wave.
- 80The GuardianPeter BradshawThe GuardianPeter BradshawThis is a world of brutality and fear from which the movie averts its gaze at key moments, but the chill is unmistakable. The title appears to refer to a light which is inexorably fading.
- 80CineVueChristopher MachellCineVueChristopher MachellNatural Light illuminates the fading glow of humanity amidst horror.
- 75The Film StageRory O'ConnorThe Film StageRory O'ConnorNagy’s is a story of bleakness, a test of endurance, and a reminder that war is a hell that, atypically, refuses to rely on gratuitousness. And it ultimately, just about, earns that overbearing solemnity.
- 60The Observer (UK)Simran HansThe Observer (UK)Simran HansIn theory, natural light is more forgiving than its artificial counterpart: in photographs, it makes the subject look less harsh. Less so here.
- 50The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungThe Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungThe finale is telegraphed far in advance, yet when it comes the drama is so down-played it doesn’t register in its full horror.
- 40VarietyJay WeissbergVarietyJay WeissbergAudiences amenable to cold, meticulous shots where people are accorded the same attributes as a landscape will find elements to admire, and certainly on a cerebral level there’s much to appreciate, yet Natural Light sheds no warmth and offers no insight into the horrors of the human condition during wartime.
- 40The Irish TimesTara BradyThe Irish TimesTara BradyAdapted from a section of Pál Závada’s 2014 novel, from the first wintry opening shot in which hunters hack away at a dead deer, Natural Light is a chilly, unknowable film, one that repeatedly evokes brutality and the more desolate tableaux found in Andrei Tarkovsky’s work to deadening effect.