The Super 8 Years (2022)
91%RT Audience Score:
Awards & Nominations: NA
Although its runtime is a brief 60 minutes, “The Super 8 Years” clearly contains intense emotions for the filmmakers. However, despite the breadth of world events captured in the film, it remains almost too deeply personal and does not often resonate on a universal level.
“The Super 8 Years” is a brief film that packs a lot of emotional punch for the filmmakers. Although it covers a wide range of world events, it remains too personal and may not resonate with everyone.
Production Company(ies)
Foreign Language, Social, VOD
Distributor
Kino Lorber
Release Type
Theatrical, Theatrical (Limited)
Filming Location(s)
France
MPAA / Certificate
NR
Year of Release
2022
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Color:Color
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Sound mix:Dolby
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Aspect ratio:NA
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Runtime:1h 0m
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Language(s):French
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Country of origin:France
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Release date:Release Date (Theaters): Dec 16, 2022 Limited
Genre(s)
Documentary/Biography
Keyword(s)
documentary, biography, French, Annie Ernaux, David Ernaux-Briot, David Thion, Philippe Martin, family, memory, home movies, 1970s, 1980s, France, Albania, Egypt, Spain, USSR, introspective, literary, Nobel Prize, Happening, Kino Lorber, narrator, producer, director, writer, box office, gross USA, limited release, critic reviews, audience reviews, Tomatometer, Fresh Kernels, genre, MPAA rating, budget, reviewed by, produced by, directed by, starring
Worldwide gross: NA
Worldwide gross (inflation-adjusted): NA
Worldwide gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): NA
Worldwide tickets sold (est.): NA
US/Canada gross: NA
US/Canada gross (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada opening weekend: $2,064
US/Canada opening weekend (inflation-adjusted): $2,210
US/Canada opening weekend ranking (inflation-adjusted): 2,853
Budget and Earnings Details
Production budget (est.): NA
Production budget (inflation-adjusted): NA
Production budget ranking: NA
Marketing and distribution budget (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
Box office net earnings to date (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
ROI to date (est.): NA
ROI ranking: NA
David Ernaux-Briot – Director
Annie Ernaux – Director
Annie Ernaux – Writer
David Thion – Producer
Philippe Martin – Producer
Director(s)
David Ernaux-Briot, Annie Ernaux
Writer(s)
Annie Ernaux
Producer(s)
David Thion, Philippe Martin
Film Festivals
Cannes
Awards & Nominations
NA
Academy Awards
All Critics (13) | Top Critics (5) | Fresh (12) | Rotten (1)
This moving, probing, beautifully written film doesn’t completely eschew nostalgia, but like Ernaux’s books, it treats the past as a prism, casting varying light depending on how, when and where it’s held.
December 26, 2022
Noel Murray
Los Angeles Times
TOP CRITIC
The compact documentary is ultimately more an exercise for the filmmakers than it is a truly rewarding cinematic experience for the audience.
December 16, 2022 | Rating: 2.5/4
Marya E. Gates
RogerEbert.com
TOP CRITIC
As much as the film acts as a complement to Ernaux’s previously published work, it also affords a unique pleasure: moving-image evidence of the woman in that transitional moment just before and after her first three books were released.
December 16, 2022
Melissa Anderson
4Columns
TOP CRITIC
It is a privilege to be invited into the world of this peerless writer with unparalleled emotional intelligence who is brave enough to point to every part of her life that, to some extent, failed.
December 15, 2022 | Rating: B
Ella Kemp
indieWire
TOP CRITIC
The film’s images have faded, but the memories they’ve stirred up are vivid and full of feeling.
December 15, 2022
Manohla Dargis
New York Times
TOP CRITIC
A brisk dream of 65-minutes built entirely out of her family’s super 8 camera home movies that is all fleeting memories stung with melancholy and bliss.
December 24, 2022
Glenn Dunks
The Film Experience
The romantic, the familial and the geopolitical are inseparable here.
December 16, 2022 | Rating: 4.5/5
Jennie Kermode
Eye for Film
Sadly, this footage, pleasantly captured snippets of vacations in gorgeously soft Super 8, subdues the raw literary horsepower of Ernaux’s compositions, imprinting ease, both placid and banal, onto an author whose writing is anything but.
December 15, 2022
Igor Fishman
In Review Online
The images of family happiness become equivocal and a smile can define sadness. [Full review in Spanish]
December 13, 2022 | Rating: 4/5
Philipp Engel
Cinemanía (Spain)
We get much more than what we see, and yet nothing in the text seems forced or academic.
October 31, 2022
Amy Taubin
Artforum
Ernaux’s story is her own, though many audiences will find it looks quite similar, regardless of one’s position as parent or child. The film plays as one extended memory—sometimes more bitter, sometimes more sweet, always a combination of both.
October 24, 2022 | Rating: B
Michael Frank
The Film Stage
Those experienced with [Annie Ernaux’s] work, whether in print or film, should find her documentary debut The Super 8 Years, co-directed by her son, David Ernaux-Briot, equally intimate and thought provoking.
May 24, 2022 | Rating: 3.5/5
Nicholas Bell
IONCINEMA.com…
Plot
The French writer and 2022 Nobel Prize awardee Annie Ernaux, whose novels and memoirs have gained her a devoted following, journeys into her family’s memory. Compiled from gorgeously textured home movie images from 1972 to 1981 – when her first books were published, her sons became teenagers, and her husband Philippe brought an 8mm film camera everywhere they went – this portrait of a time, place, and moment of personal and political significance takes us from holidays and family rituals in suburban bourgeois France to trips abroad in Albania and Egypt, Spain and the USSR. Supplying her own introspective voiceover, Ernaux and her co-filmmaker, her son David, guide the viewer through fragments of a decade.
Trivia
Goofs / Tidbits
Annie Ernaux, who is both the writer and one of the stars of the film, is a renowned French author and winner of numerous literary awards.
David-Ernaux-Briot.jpg
