“Two lovers in a lively and ancient Georgian town are cursed not to recognize each other in this witty, warm, surprising modern folktale. [...] and given how much this movie loves the movies, as well as dogs, music, children, soccer, ice cream, the ancient Georgian town of Kutaisi, and the very process of falling in love, there is something immensely hopeful and moving about being thus invited to collude."
Jessica Kiang, VARIETY
“The question is not so much, What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? but what exactly we see when we look at Alexandre Koberidze’s joyously elusive flight of fancy from Georgia. This second feature from the director of Let The Summer Never Come Again (2017) is a slyly inventive, free-ranging adventure in cinematic possibility. [...] in the sheer exuberance of its exploratory spirit, Koberidze’s film is very much of benefit to cinema – and any who feared that the art form was running out of new ways to find poetry in the real.”
Jonathan Romney, SCREEN
"We see a highly accomplished work of cinematic art.”
Boyd van Hoeij, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
"The scripted scenes still mix with quietly astonishing moments, which capture the town’s uniqueness and convey a sense of wonder. Some of them are humorous, such as a purportedly missed encounter between two dogs that ‘agreed’ to watch a soccer match together. Others are visual interludes, or refrains, such as a soccer-ball bobbing down the stream, a little girl muscling through a violin piece, or the dancing of light and wind against gauzy curtains."
Ela Bittancourt, SIGHT AND SOUND
"Movies can truly be anything, and the beauty of Alexandre Koberidze’s lyrical and ineffably romantic “What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?” is how it reminds us of that — time and again — during almost every one of its meandering 150 minutes."
David Erlich, INDIEWIRE
"So often we ask for stories to deviate from the expected script, to give us something organic and real, and that Koberidze’s film playfully rejects this, building his own compelling fable from the putty of love, is refreshing. "
Jack King, THE PLAYLIST
"What Do We See is a stream of rewarding diversions flowing like tributaries of the Rioni River that runs through Kutaisi and under its bridges.”
David Hudson, THE CRITERION COLLECTION
“…What Do We See is as idiosyncratic as it is polished, an assertive work whose stunning images, chiefly shot on 16mm by Koberidze’s classmate Faraz Fesharaki, are a far cry from the pixel soup of its predecessor.”
Giovanni Marchini Camia, FILMMAKER MAGAZINE
“…a gorgeous modern fairy tale about ill-starred love, mysticism, soccer and street dogs, which is also perhaps the most bewitching love letter to a hometown that I’ve ever seen.”
Jessica Kiang, THE NEW YORK TIMES
“More than a romance, or a fairy tale about sentient security cameras, What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? is an ode to living in the moment and finding beauty in the familiar.”
Orla Smith, THE FILM STAGE
"A heartening sign of the kind of movie—idiosyncratic, surprising, youthful, romantic—that this year's Berlinale has chosen to spotlight in the main competition, Alexandre Koberidze’s second film, What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? is a true delight. .[…] it confirms the Georgian director as a major talent."
Daniel Kasman, MUBI
“…an idiosyncratic mix of styles, genres and forms that incredibly wraps into a coherent 150 minutes of cinematic joy.”
Vladan Petkovic, CINEUROPA
“In the meantime, this movie means to make us notice the marvelous in the everyday, in much the way that a great James Schuyler poem does."
Glenn Kenny, ROGEREBERT.COM
“Pleasing, exasperating, poignant and coy, “What Do We See” is a loose, exceedingly leisurely meander through a series of momentous and banal moments that take place during an amble through the Georgian city of Kutaisi.”
Manohla Dargis, THE NEW YORK TIMES
