Norte, the End of History

It is the work of a director as fascinated by decency as by ugliness, and able to present the chaos of life in a series of pictures that are at once luminously clear and endlessly mysterious.

It feels as though wherever the camera might be—and however it might be moving—is exactly where it belongs.

Norte tells a big story on a grand scale, but its emphasis, moment by moment, is on the quotidian. It's simplicity that resonates most deeply of all.

Filipino maven Diaz delivers a bravura, literary human drama that does justice to its great source material.

If the movie’s universal themes don’t impress, its specific details do.

Norte is the rare film where the characters seem simpler the longer we spend time with them. They’re humans that evolve into types.

There's little in the way of genuine depth, complexity or nuance here, Diaz instead seeks to convey the illusion of profundity by having various characters throw around weighty social and philosophical verbiage in thuddingly sophomoric fashion.