A family in Hawai'i faces the imminent death of their eldest as the ghosts of the past haunt the countryside.... (Full plot summary below)
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A family in Hawai'i faces the imminent death of their eldest as the ghosts of the past haunt the countryside.
Leave your thoughts about I Was a Simple Man.
| The New YorkerRichard BrodyYogi unfolds the characters’ intimate stories and the region’s history in sharply textured details and rapturous images; he blends social practicalities and metaphysical mysteries with a serene, straightforward astonishment. |
| RogerEbert.comRoxana HadadiA 100-minute spell of beauty and melancholy, intimate and grand in equal measure, a film that derives its power from the universality of its final destination and the relatability of the pain, love, and regret that pave the guiding road. |
| SlashfilmHoai-Tran BuiI Was a Simple Man is a slow-burning walk toward the light, a paean for life, and the land and people that shaped it. It's the kind of love letter that only a lifelong resident of Hawaii like Yogi could make, to a resilient land whose scars will take long to heal. |
| Slant MagazineWes GreeneThe film’s quietly uncanny narrative wondrously depicts not only a dying man’s reflection on his life, but also the very nature of Hawaii itself. |
| Los Angeles TimesMichael RechtshaffenTaking a cue from its taciturn protagonist, I Was a Simple Man prefers to let its soulful poetic imagery do the bulk of the talking. |
| IndieWireDavid EhrlichLayering the spectral hush of “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” over the elegiac domesticity of a late Ozu film like “An Autumn Afternoon,” the Honolulu-born filmmaker’s singularly Hawaiian second feature is haunted and haunting in equal measure — a reckoning pitched at the volume of a whisper. |
| The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyThe edges are perhaps rougher and the narrative more structured, but the film carries echoes of the work of Asian contemplative cinema maestros Tsai Ming-liang and Apitchatpong Weerasethakul, both of whom Yogi cites as influences. |
| VarietyGuy LodgeAll Yogi’s actors work in subtle, effective deference to his natural command of atmosphere and place: This is a film where Hawaiian rainfall has as prominent and evocative a voice as any human presence, and where the growth of a tree marks time as clearly as the deepening crevices in a character’s face. |
| Film ThreatBradley GibsonYogi brings us close to Masao’s personal tragedy while at the same time pulling back to see life and death at a cosmic level. The movie delves into the cycle of life and death enough so that that audience members can understand and accept the beauty of the process. |
