Critic Reviews

The realities in Nathan Christ's impressive documentary Echotone are, sadly, nothing new. But the emotions surrounding them are nevertheless compelling.

Too vital for elegy, Echotone tells an old story whose beginning - the inception of a vibrant creative hub - remains mysterious, although the end is easy to predict.

Echotone is scattered, for sure (the sound ordinance battle is poorly handled), but as an anecdotal account of Austin in the first decade of a new century, it's rarely anything less than compelling.

Director Nathan Christ dithers between fashioning the film as a glossing study of metropolitan personality and a virtual advertisement for the groups included.

There's a potentially fascinating and appreciably more concise 60-minute documentary to be found somewhere amid the uneven and unfocused 88-minute hodgepodge that is Echotone.