David Easteal

Screen Daily / “The Plains”: Rotterdam Review / Neil Young
“The humdrum becomes slowly and cumulatively fascinating across the three hours of Australian David Easteal’s quietly radical feature-length debut The Plains.”

Variety / ‘The Plains’ Review: Viewers Become Backseat Car Passengers in an Engaging Docudrama Hybrid / Richard Kuipers
“The “dead time” of the daily commute comes alive in “The Plains,” an absorbing documentary-drama hybrid that places viewers in the car of a middle-aged Melbourne lawyer during his drive home from work during the course of a year.”

The Guardian / The Plains review: a three-hour film set almost entirely in a car – and it is extraordinary / Luke Buckmaster
“… this extraordinarily mundane film – a combination of words I’m fairly certain I’ve never used before – is a tremendous achievement and, in a subtle way, an amazing work of art.”

The Film Stage / Rotterdam Review: The Plains is an Astonishingly Touching Road Trip and Terrific Debut / Leonardo Goi
“For a film that seldom lets us step outside Andrew’s car, this is a most evocative, soul-replenishing journey.”

Sight & Sound / The Plains: a three-hour docudrama set almost entirely in a car proves quietly radical / Samuel Wigley

Belfast Film Festival essays / The Plains: OK Commuter / Jessica Kiang

The New York Times / ‘The Plains’ Review: Road to Somewhere / Ben Kenigsberg
“Fans of structural film, “Jeanne Dielman” and Google Maps will find much to treasure”

Film Comment / Dispatch: IFFR 2022 / Jordan Cronk
“… an acute portrait of modern life—one in which otherwise unarticulated beliefs, regrets, and anxieties bring to light a shared humanity too often lost in the commotion of the world.”

Cinema Scope (Issue 91) / The Plains / Chloe Lizotte
“… Perhaps this fluke of perspective reveals a central preoccupation of the film: the way that life settles into a shape almost in spite of conscious attempts to construct it.”

The New York Review of Books / The View from the Bank Seat / David Hering

Metro Magazine (Issue 213) / In the Driver’s Seat: The Relatable Radicalism of David Easteal’s The Plains / Glenn Dunks

Senses of Cinema / The Plains: Conversation with David Easteal / Maria Giovanna Vagenas
“… a unique, formally daring, road movie. Like a marvellous perpetuum mobile, time and space seem here to progress only to then fold in on themselves, through the daily repetition of a route, always similar but different each time.”

Senses of Cinema / Stuck in traffic: IFFR 2022 / Tara Judah
“… Easteal’s film, which is extraordinary for its slow and deliberate pacing, invited me to reflect deeply on space and progression.”

Le Cinéma Club / Q&A with David Easteal / Courtney Muller
“David Easteal’s debut feature The Plains is a poignant epic set almost entirely inside a Hyundai Elantra.”

Tone Glow / Film Show 013: David Easteal / Joshua Minsoo-Kim
“As we observe all this from the vantage of a backseat passenger, there’s beauty in incremental yet perceptible change.”

Directors Notes / David Easteal’s Intimate Transportive Commuter Epic ‘The Plains’ Shows Us How Less Can Easily Be More / Redmond Bacon
“… a highly empathetic and transportive experience.”

QAGOMA Blog / Australian Next Wave Cinema / Robert Hughes
“… a mesmerising meditation on the tidal rhythms of life.”

Cahiers du Cinema (n°798) / Poétique du siège arrière / Marin Gérard [French]

Libération / Cinéma du réel, sens dessus dessous politique / Luc Chessel [French]

Libération / Au festival de Rotterdam, des feux d’édifices / Léo Soesanto [French]

Critikat / Close to You / Bastien Gens, Marin Gérard [French]

Micropsia / Festival de Rotterdam 2022: crítica de «The Plains», de David Easteal / Diego Lerer [Spanish]

Film Art / Eternal Return: The Plains by David Easteal / Maxim Ershov [Russian]

Meduza / 5 Films of the Rotterdam Festival / Anton Dolin [Russian]