65
Metascore
10 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100TV Guide MagazineKen FoxTV Guide MagazineKen FoxReleased simultaneously in the U.S. with Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's Oscar-nominated fictional thriller "The Lives of Others," this chilling 82-minute documentary about three souls destroyed by the Stasi, the notorious secret police of East Germany, puts a cold, factual gloss on what might otherwise be taken for fiction.
- 80The New RepublicStanley KauffmannThe New RepublicStanley KauffmannA documentary, thoughtfully made.
- 75The A.V. ClubNathan RabinThe A.V. ClubNathan RabinDecomposition bears powerful, uncompromising witness to man's inhumanity to man, which is one of the most important things any documentary can do, though, it's also one of the most grueling.
- 75New York PostLou LumenickNew York PostLou LumenickThere are touching interviews with a couple of former inmates...The most riveting part of The Decomposition of the Soul is their return to the prison, which was closed in 1989 and turned into a memorial to its victims.
- 70Chicago ReaderFred CamperChicago ReaderFred CamperDarkly poetic study of psychological brutality.
- 70VarietyKen EisnerVarietyKen EisnerA thorny subject is handled with care in this meticulous reconstruction of life inside the East German police state, as boiled down to the experiences of just two ex-inmates -- one man and one woman --- of a notorious Stasi prison. Overall effect is poetically thought-provoking, not depressing.
- 70Village VoiceJ. HobermanVillage VoiceJ. HobermanThe Decomposition of the Soul is a deliberately confining movie, but unlike "The Lives of Others," it offers no closure.
- 60New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNew York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinThe decomposition of the soul is the goal of a Stasi incarceration, the promised end for an enemy of the state, and there is something about the movie’s pacing--the silences, the drone of the narration ("The name of your enemy is hope?…?")--that wears you down.
- 50SalonAndrew O'HehirSalonAndrew O'HehirIt might be too slow and morbid for American viewers without an existing interest in the subject.
- 40The New York TimesManohla DargisThe New York TimesManohla DargisThis kind of glance at history is a poor substitute for a hard, steady and expansive examination.