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Our Time Machine

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China, United States · 2019
1h 26m
Director S. Leo Chiang, Yang Sun, Shuang Liang
Starring Tong Zhengwei
Genre Documentary, Drama, Family

When influential Chinese artist Ma Liang (a.k.a. Maleonn) realizes that his father is suffering from Alzheimer's, he invites him to collaborate on his most ambitious project to date - a haunting stage performance. Through the creation of this play, the two men confront their mortality before time runs out and memories are lost forever.

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What are people saying?

What are critics saying?

90

Slashfilm by

Our Time Machine might deploy too many endings, but each epilogue feels precious as if it is snatching as much time as it could with its subjects.

100

Screen Daily by Allan Hunter

Our Time Machine is very carefully balanced between the personal and the professional. An elegant, focused piece of storytelling finds the space to explore the family history revealing the way in which these lives are inextricably linked with the history of China itself.

100

San Francisco Chronicle by G. Allen Johnson

The issues of aging and familial relationships and the appealing nature of this family would make “Our Time Machine” worthy of a look in any case, but what puts it over the top is Maleonn’s fascinating visual inventions.

80

The New York Times by Glenn Kenny

This often visually beautiful movie sometimes ventures full-time into Maleonn’s own dreams and is frank in its depiction of the conflicts in the family — as well as of Maleonn’s struggles to be a good son and an active artist, as his ambitions for the project run ahead of his financial resources.

88

LarsenOnFilm by Josh Larsen

The documentary displays such winsome artistry that you also leave feeling energized. It’s an invigorating act of creative defiance in the face of Alzheimer’s disease.

80

The Hollywood Reporter by Justin Lowe

The technical and logistical details of the project are constantly fascinating, but it’s these emotional moments that pack most of the film’s power.

90

Variety by Scott Tobias

Sun and Chiang strike a tricky balance between a high-stakes making-of documentary and an intimate, observational family portrait, but Maleonn is such a thoughtful, sensitive, brilliant subject that the film is compelling no matter where on the creative spectrum they find him.

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