“One of the Best Movies of 2022”
- MANOHLA DARGIS, NEW YORK TIMES“Davenport has put a Stake in the Ground of an Emboldened Cinema of Disability.”
- FILMMAKER MAGAZINE“Poetry in Captivating Motion”
- ROGER EBERT“POWERFUL”
- THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER“A MUST SEE”
- VOX“A Disability Film Unlike Any Other”
- THE ATLANTIC“A Personal Saga Told with Battered Grace.”
- PASTE MAGAZINE“AMAZING”
- DOCUMENTARY NOW
AUDIENCE REACTIONS
CRITIC REVIEWS
“More poetic than confrontational, I Didn’t See You There’s methods embody its purpose better than any synopsis. The doc hums with a hypnotic affinity for architectural patterns and urban textures, the visual infrastructure highly attractive to Davenport since it allows him to immerse us in his point of view without being the view himself.”
“Strongly involving. The vignettes that comprise Reid Davenport’s existence really give you a sense of life from the vantage point of one at a lower elevation than most. It’s life, as usual, just a little different, is all.”
“‘I Didn’t See You There’ is a challenging but essential viewing experience.”
“An immersive, impressionistic experience”
“Aesthetically, I Didn’t See You There approaches Brakhage-levels of abstraction, as Davenport frequently points the camera straight down at the pavement while zooming along on his motorized wheelchair, creating a flickering cascade of textures: concrete, asphalt, grooves, cracks, grates, manhole covers, endless fossilized chewing gum, that yellow tactile paving, multi-colored pride crosswalks…”
“Captivating”
– Slug Mag
“The shots are reverie-inducing, hypnotic and rather enchanting”
– Forbes
“Reid Davenport’s documentary could turn out to be the most important thing you will see this year, if not the greatest.”
– High on Films
“A powerful meditation on how we see people with disabilities”
“Davenport doesn’t just aim to tell the audience about his experience as a disabled person, but to show us the way he sees the world, using techniques that are rarely implemented on screen.”
“A very thoughtful road trip from his wheelchair” – Eat, Drink, Films
“I’ve always had this tie with the freak show, especially as a filmmaker who uses his perspective as a disabled person in his work,” [Davenport] said. “Not all of those performers had agency.”
“Funny, sharply observed…an experimental movie of great beauty…a personal statement on the experience of modern urban life, with its distinct perils, aggravations, and unexpected moments of grace that you would never think to notice unless they happened to you personally…Davenport lets the images speak for him.”
– Matt Zoller Seitz for Roger Ebert
“Filmed from his vantage point, his travels and travails are accompanied by his thoughts and feelings. While you might imagine this would only have limited appeal as a spectacle, it works thanks to a lot of imagination on the director’s part.”
– Backseat Mafia
“'I Didn’t See You There' is first-person poetry in captivating motion, expressed with a singular, assured artistic voice.” – Nick Allen for Roger Ebert
“It is extremely rare that a film with very few human faces can evoke a spectrum of emotions such as laughter, compassion, warmth and distress in 77 minutes. It’s both unsettling and exciting to see a film that is honestly and candidly human, without the frills or the unnecessary.”
“A radical film that re-appropriates the gaze and asks audiences to look at the city with a fuller and more inclusive view.”
“Provides a challenge to the complacency of the able-bodied, and a chance to experience a very different relationship towards the external world.”
– 48 Hills
“Draws a direct line between the circus’ legacy of the “freak show” and the ableism that Davenport […] confronts on a day-to-day basis.”
"Road movies are an iconic American genre, powered by the rush of freedom, independence and possibility. Reid Davenport might laugh at being compared to L.A. mavericks Dennis Hooper or Monte Hellman [...] but his breakthrough feature doc, I Didn’t See You There, fiercely follows in a grand tradition."
– KQED
“Takes viewers inside Davenport’s POV from a cinematic standpoint”
– The Wrap
“One of the Best Movies of 2022”
– Manohla Dargis, New York Times
“The filmmaker Reid Davenport…takes viewers inside his life as a disabled person through footage shot entirely from his perspective…With his feature, Davenport stakes out his own vantage point on the world.”
“A transportive, thought-provoking work that places viewers in the shoes of its subject.”
“A debut feature that is deeply and sometimes opaquely personal.”
– Variety
“For Davenport, disability isn’t something to conquer through art. It’s something to fuel his work, a fundamental fact of who he is and what he creates.”
“Mesmerizing”
“By offering other people the chance to share in his existence, Mr. Davenport has made art of the most radical kind.”