Kimi Takesue

“The Best Documentaries of 2024, So Far" - ONLOOKERS one of 3 films picked by the NYTimes. “I also loved “Onlookers,” Kimi Takesue’s unusual film about tourism in Laos...What you slowly realize you’re watching is the way that constant observation creates a certain sort of performance as well as disruption. Tourists are there to look at locals, and locals look right back at them, watching their behavior as well. But there’s an extra layer, because here we are as viewers, watching people be watched. So who is the real onlooker?”

- Alissa Wilkinson, The New York Times

"Immersive, beguiling, and productively unsettling...Takesue acknowledges the voyeurism inherent to being human, while also acknowledging its ethical consequences — whether we are physically traveling to foreign locales or sitting in a cinema...the film is an exercise in the power of watching and listening."

- Ellen G'Sell, Hyperallergic

"Kimi Takesue’s films are ones that reward the patient viewer...With 'Onlookers,' Kimi Takesue lays bare the performative nature of tourism, in all its graceless glory...The result is a series of slow-moving tableaus that sit with the tensions of negotiating space in a world increasingly defined by consumption."

- Dessane Lopez Cassell, Seen Magazine

"Sublime...Takesue's documentary is an excursion that reveals surprises at every checkpoint." 

- Ari-Duong Nguyen, Metrograph Journal

"Visually-stunning! ....showcases how tourism can have an effect on a country and its local people."

- Charles Barfield, The Playlist

"A wry and at times uproarious ethnographic work…revelatory!”

- Michael Sicinski, Film Comment

"Compelling! ...Through a series of consistent wide shots, the camera never moving, to a sound tableau that picks up the most subtle touristic rustling…Onlookers not only grabs your gaze almost subconsciously, but it also elicits nostalgia and self-reflection of one’s own such experiences."

- Steve Rickinson, Modern Times Review

“If you’re looking for a new kind of travel film, this is for you."

- Benjamin Franz, Film Threat

"95 and 6 to Go is the home movie as subtle, multi-layered, self-reflexive work of art."
- Peter Keough, The Boston Globe

"95 and 6 to Go is that rarity: a film that makes you want to be better, do better."
            - Sheila O'Malley, critic for RogerEbert.com

           

"The film is in many ways a mutually sombre homecoming; the proverbial return to care for one’s elders becomes an active accounting of the past and provokes an unforeseen source of humble creativity."
          - Jay Kuehner, Cinema Scope

"Among other things, the film explores the ethics of intensely intimate filmmaking."
          - Patricia Aufderheide, International Documentary Association

"Moving... profound."
          - Jose Solis, StageBuddy.com

"Delightful... profound... impossible to walk away from the film without admiration."
          - Michael Lieberman, Artblog

   
 

"An unusual, visually rich visit to the nation... Some scenes appear as artfully composed as a painting (and some reminiscent of famed painters). But these are found moments, and they have movement and character as well as poetry."
          - David DeWitt, The New York Times

"Beautifully meditative... an uplifting observational docu that plays on seeing and being seen."
          - Jay Weissberg, Variety

Grade: A
"Takesue has a wonderful eye for human portraiture, and for landscape portraiture, that is arresting without being static. She captures, as she intended, the lyricism of the everyday."
          - Peter Rainer, The Christian Science Monitor

Critic's Pick! 
"Complex... In her impressive documentary feature debut, Kimi Takesue interrogates the outsider's gaze while still offering an expansive, wide-angle view of contemporary Uganda."
          - Eric Hynes, Time Out New York

"Precisely observed, gracefully contemplative, and gently self-reflective. Highly recommended."
          - Educational Media Reviews

10 stars out of 10
"Simultaneously contemplative and anticipatory... How are filmmakers responsible as they transport and share such stories? [How] are viewers responsible to what they see? Beautifully, achingly, Where Are You Taking Me? asks these questions and more."
          - Cynthia Fuchs, PopMatters

"The film presents not just Peru as the tourists see it, but also a Peruvian identity shaped in collaboration with tourists. The result is a place where tourism helps build daily life."
          - Aaron Cutler, Museum of the Moving Image