97% Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

All Critics (60) | Top Critics (23) | Fresh (58) | Rotten (2)

A movie that somehow mixes apprehension for Ai with a feeling of warmth and, certainly, fun.

Affable and unpretentious, Ai comes across as a cagey operator whose candor is very appealing.

It's likely to change the way you think about art and politics and the state of China today.

Using archival footage dating back to Ai's adventures in the New York art world in his 20s, Klayman traces his evolution as a creator and as an activist.

Though he has paid the price, Ai is a pathfinder in this new phenomenon in tactical insurrection. Never Sorry is a new-style profile in 21st-century courage.

Ai admits that he's become "a brand for liberal thinking and individualism," though that's nothing to be ashamed of -- at this point, his Warholian talent for self-promotion may be the only thing keeping him alive.

This riveting documentary deserves consideration for year-end awards. Klayman gained unprecedented access to this very photogenic man with a dynamic personality.

The film's recurring theme is of an artist on a perpetual hunt for transparency, in his country and abroad.

A lively, informative, funny and inspirational portrait of a courageous, charismatic, highly original man.

His willingness to speak out despite severe consequences is inspiring, and his recent silence speaks almost as loudly as his work in calling attention to China's repressive tactics.

This essential, finely honed biographical portrait is jollied along by all the ironies and complexities of modern China.

Who doesn't hate it when critics say, "this is an important documentary you must see!" Well, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry is a critically important documentary you need to see.

Though we might wish for more insight or explanation, Klayman's film remains an incredible document of a courageous individual who the Chinese officials would prefer to make disappear.

The boundaries between performance and protest are virtuosically, vitally fuddled in this stirring documentary chronicling three years in the life of Ai Weiwei, the outspoken Chinese artist and dissident.

The artist repudiated the repudiation. Art had, as art always should have, the last word.

Fascinating account of Weiwei's practice and politics that gives centre stage to his charismatic personality.

This is how a documentary portrait should be done.

Klayman's all-access, warts-and-all coverage of this artist's struggles with the State represents an extension of Ai's own ideals about transparency and freedom of expression.

[H]as a sense of the gloss to it: Ai is such a complex man, and he's operating in an environment that is alien to most Westerners, and so at every turn here, I wanted to get into much more depth than Klayman takes us to.

A powerful picture, yet, even more impressively, it treats art like a vessel for communication and meaningful exploration, not just as a stepping stone to cult fame.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ai_weiwei_never_sorry_2012/

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