Critic Reviews

Structured like a fireworks display, with only a handful of small reprieves throughout, Brimstone & Glory naturally builds to a marvelous grand finale.

These people accept the consequences of living like there's no tomorrow. They stand awaiting their fate in a rain of fire. And now we can feel a little bit of that, too.

Brimstone & Glory, in a lean 67 minutes of cinematic poetry, bears that love out in dizzying extremes.

The mode of this short movie is naturalistic. There are interviews of people in voiceover, but not a lot of talking-head footage. The perspective is of an observer sauntering through the town and then thrust into the middle of a fearsome but exhilarating spectacle.

Mixing sheer spectacle with modest but pleasing human-interest threads, Viktor Jakovleski’s first directorial feature is a poetical, entrancing documentary.

“Brimstone” is less successful as it edges toward an impressionistic immersion into fire and fiesta, but as you-are-there experiences go, it has energy to burn.

Through its energy and inherent beauty, Brimstone & Glory hits concurrent notes of peril and bliss, but even at a scant 67 minutes it can seem a bit aimless and scattershot.

The film, accompanied by a percussive score from Benh Zeitlin and Dan Romer (both wrote the music for “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” which Mr. Zeitlin directed), has a wandering attention span and grows monotonous even at barely more than one hour.