95% Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present

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"She's never not performing," says one friend. And the documentary, "Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present," confirms it.

Briskly edited and brightly shot.

In place of evenhandedness, the film gives us a full sense of a personality and intelligence so riveting that we begin to comprehend why all those hundreds of thousands lined up at the MoMA.

The film's centerpiece is the retrospective devoted to Abramovic at the Museum of Modern Art in the spring of 2010.

The film goes a long way to establish the intellectual seriousness and dedication involved in her ambitious series of art stunts.

The second half offers shot after shot of the people who sat opposite Abramovi - an unexpectedly enthralling record of reactions that range from stark agony to rather phony amusement.

Like any good documentary, ""The Artist Is Present" gives insight into the life and work of a truly talented lady. Her works may not be for all tastes she but obviously has an audience if MoMA is any indication.

...for the 2 1/2 month run of the [MoMA] show, Marina would sit completely still in a chair as visitors cued up to sit across from her and look into her eyes. The effect is incredibly and unexpectedly moving.

It demonstrates how cinema can actually make the artist seem present, offering an empathetic fellow consciousness that mirrors one's soul.

If you have been looking for the natural meeting place of Jafar Panahi's document of life under house arrest This is Not a Film and Justin Bieber's popumentary Never Say Never, look no further.

An exhilarating, elegantly executed film that holds a mirror up to the art world, its protagonists and its devotees, forcing us to question the whole circus.

Beginning as an overview of her career, this fascinating doc closes in on the show and its many revealing encounters, asking us to consider face-to-face engagement as a way of dissolving the barriers between an artist and her public.

Thanks largely to the engaging nature of its protagonist, Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present stands up as one of the most diverting documentaries to hit the big screen this year.

Marina Abramovi? emerges from this arresting documentary as the Maria Callas of performance art.

Here, you start to feel, is commodified culture at work in its capital city.

Abramovic is nothing less than magnetic.

Abramovic is raw and likeable, if mostly inscrutable.

Although appealing to narrow slice of art aficionados, "Abramovic' carries a deeper message, and a warning, to an increasing mechanized and medicated world

A little pretentious maybe, but then you've got to wonder at a woman who could sit motionless in a wooden chair, eight hours a day for three months.

If you're sceptical about performance art, this might just change your mind.

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! Yes, Abramovic is a seductress.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/marina_abramovic_the_artist_is_present_2012/

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