THOU WAST MILD AND LOVELY

The simplicity and spontaneity of “Thou Wast Mild and Lovely” offers the primal renewal of the image. It’s as if the movie were undergirded by a sense of timeless authority borrowed from scripture.
Richard Brody, The New Yorker

The talk of the Berlin International Film Festival… with tense eroticism and experimental, largely free-form filmmaking
Peter Knegt, Indiewire

Decker’s luridly poetic vision luxuriates in the ethereal and the mythical. [The performances are] sure to haunt many a nightmare. Don Simpson, Smells Like Screen Spirit With its characterful acting, and potently nerve-jangling string score, the film delivers an intriguing slant on rural-peril convention.
Jonathan Romney, Screen International

a dream-like exploration of sexuality and tragedy.
Phil Lederer, SRQ Backlot

the unholy marriage of Ingmar Bergman and David Lynch
Eric Kohn, Indiewire

like a Flannery O’Connor short story shot by Cindy Sherman…. Berlinale audience was stunned by her movies.
Dmitry Volchek, Svoboda

Unquestionably one of the biggest joys of the festival was the discovery of young female director Josephine Decker… From the first blurry
shots of Butter on the Latch to the wonderfully insane ending of Thou Wast Mild and Lovely, Decker gave her audiences two thrilling cinematic rides that were refreshingly unconventional and often experimental, all in all shamelessly wild and almost bursting with energy and artistic dynamism.
Toby Ashraf, Stil in Berlin

brazenly surreal approach
Patrick Gamble, The Skinny (UK)

Last year brought “Upstream Color,” “To the Wonder,” and “Butter on the Latch.” “Thou Wast Mild and Lovely” is the latest, and, to my mind, the most extreme, of these new films. It’s not a conclusion, and it’s not the only recent movie that suggests that there’s something new in the air. Such films as Miranda July’s “The Future,” Terence Nance’s “An Oversimplification of Her Beauty,” Raúl Ruiz’s “Night Across the Street,” Leos Carax’s “Holy Motors,” Jafar Panahi’s “This Is Not a Film,” and … Agnès Varda’s “The Beaches of Agnès” point far ahead to a “new grammar” of narrative.
Richard Brody, The New Yorker

unrestrained, poetic and brutal
Andreas Günther, Filmstarts.de

Berlinale Breakouts: 10 Folks That Made A Major Impression At This Year’s Festival
Indiewire

turns conventional narrative wisdom upside down, much like the work of lyricism-prone contemporaries Shane Carruth, Leos Carax and Terrence Malick…By turns nightmarish, titillating and dreamlike, Thou Wast is one hell of an experiential enigma
Michael-Oliver Harding, Exclaim.ca