SummaryElena, a young Brazilian woman, travels to New York with dreams of becoming an actress. She leaves behind a childhood spent in hiding during the military dictatorship, and she leaves behind Petra, her seven-year-old sister. Two decades later, Petra goes to New York to pursue acting and in search of Elena. But the film (and the filmmaker) cannot e... Read More
Directed By:Petra Costa
Written By:Petra Costa, Carolina Ziskind
Elena
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
81
User score
Generally Favorable
7.2
My Score
Drag or tap to give a rating
Hover and click to give a rating
Where to Watch
Not available in your country?
ExpressVPN
Get 3 Extra months free
$6.67/mth
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
81
100% Positive
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
May 27, 2014
100
A pained and gorgeous summoning, Petra Costa's haunted doc Elena dances with death, memory, and family, seducing viewers and then breaking their hearts.
May 29, 2014
91
This is avant-garde autobiographical filmmaking at its finest, and the results are stunningly beautiful, and achingly emotional within a lyrical and dreamlike aesthetic.
May 29, 2014
90
Elena is an elegiac cinematic essay that is both haunting and unforgettable.
Jun 12, 2014
80
The result is a type of cinematic performance art, with all the self-consciousness that suggests — a sibling love story that's no less heartfelt for being in the form of a first-person poem.
May 29, 2014
80
With its free-floating imagery, Elena unfolds like a cinematic dream whose central image is water, which symbolizes the washing away of grief. But more than that, it represents the stream of life, with beautiful images of women floating through time.
May 27, 2014
75
This is a film about the invisible things passed down from generation to generation, that nasty inheritance that cages us into patterns and puzzles we try to solve in someone else's name.
User score
Generally Favorable
7.2
59% Positive
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
29% Mixed
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
12% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
Jul 8, 2023
10
People in the reviews saying it's a bad movie, but amazingly, it's not a movie, it's a documentary about Elena and Petra's life, this is not fiction. You can't just say it's a poorly told story, if you don't understand it's good that you read more to acquire a better interpretation, because this story is told in a totally poetic way, really not everyone will be able to understand it.
Oct 31, 2019
0
There are few movies as bad as this one. The review scores online have been swollen by friends of the production, to put it mildly, but even they cannot disguise what a turgid piece of junk this movie is. You'll see the phrase "self-indulgent" in different reviews of this video, and that is bad enough, but from a filmmaker's perspective the worst slur you can give a movie is applicable here: incompetent. And the director doesn't know it. This is miserably bad story-telling, with amateurish lighting and sound, and a story that barely rises to high school level. Somebody got some money and thought they'd make a movie. Happens all the time, and the results are often sophomoric, as in this eye-poppingly bad effort. Watch this if you want to know how NOT to make cinema.
Production Company:
- Busca Vida Filmes
Release Date:May 30, 2014
Duration:1 h 20 m
Website:
Awards
Brazilia Festival of Brazilian Cinema
• 4 Wins & 4 Nominations
Cinema Brazil Grand Prize
• 2 Wins & 4 Nominations
Prêmio Guarani
• 1 Win & 3 Nominations
