61
Metascore
6 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90Film ThreatBenjamin FranzFilm ThreatBenjamin FranzThe video footage is demented, hysterically funny, and supremely dark. In presenting Carson’s antics and dissecting his style as a presenter, A Life on the Farm provides a horror-tinged giggle fest.
- 80The Observer (UK)Ellen E JonesThe Observer (UK)Ellen E JonesHarding’s film proves movingly open-minded on the subject of the strange things isolation can do, but as a neighbour he might have been nosier. English reserve seems to have prevented further prying into the circumstances that created this English eccentric.
- 60The GuardianCath ClarkeThe GuardianCath ClarkeThe documentary’s director, Oscar Harding, explains that his grandfather was a neighbour of Carson’s in the wonderfully named village of Huish Champflower, and he was first shown A Life on the Farm age six. Stretching this curiosity of a man and his work into a full-length documentary is perhaps pushing it.
- For all its convention, Oscar Harding’s A Life on the Farm remains an elegy for amateur filmmaking, while also allowing for the survival of Carson’s work, which though brilliant, remained undiscovered and unrecognized until now.
- 60The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeThe Irish TimesDonald ClarkeFor the most part...A Life on the Farm is a warm-hearted celebration of an oddity for the ages.
- It is ironic that a documentary all about the creativity of an avant-garde artist has no creativity in its own construction.