Jonathan Kiefer

Tsai isn't without mischief — one key to this film's hypnotic power is humor so subtle it's practically subliminal — but his preferred takeaway is the pathos, the still-universal frustration, of an unanswered ringtone.

When it's all over, Still Life feels disembodied and perfunctory, like a very respectful eulogy for no one in particular.

The Rohmer touch consists of nonchalance and effortless sensuality, not just in the people, but also in the landscape, somehow even in the air.

Rumsfeld's impenetrability makes him fascinating, but only to a point.

Carbone minimizes dialogue and focuses instead on gestural specificity; he makes a useful inventory of boys-will-be-boys behavior — wrestling in fields, poking at scars or dead critters, shutting down on parents — and stages it in tellingly muted vignettes within the ample copses of rural New Jersey.

At times it's dense and sluggish, too much like a novel. But there is some exhilaration to be had.