Dawson City: Frozen Time (2017)

Turan calls the documentary a thrilling, visually astonishing achievement that makes its many strands compelling. He especially praises Morrison’s striking use of the recovered footage and its expressive montages.

Bradshaw finds the film dazzling, sensitive and mournful as it explores the fragility of memory and film history. He praises Morrison’s use of the rediscovered footage, while finding the baseball World Series passage comparatively flat.

Ehrlich finds the film’s preservation work marvelous but its storytelling too dry and cold. He praises the evocative sense of how history is shaped by whatever survives, while faulting the film’s scattershot approach and dirge-like score.

The critic finds the documentary elegiac and sharply analytical, with an intellectually powerful sweep through history. They single out Morrison’s editing and ghostly archival footage for praise, while calling the insistent music distracting.

Gleiberman finds the documentary a captivating, time-machine-like meditation on the birth of modernity. He praises Alex Somers’s haunting score and the mystery of the archival images, but says the final half-hour goes on too long.

The review finds Bill Morrison’s documentary intelligent but overlong and too deliberate. It praises the hypnotic archival collage, especially a montage that turns a forgotten film cliché into an insight.

Scheck finds the documentary a captivating, poignant time capsule, though its two-hour length and wandering focus can frustrate. He especially praises the haunting, fascinating rescued silent-film footage.

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Fujishima finds the film an affecting and accessible work of history as well as a love letter to cinema. He especially praises the astonishing unearthed nitrate footage and its power to preserve history and art across time.