Garbo, the Spy

Allen Johnson, SF Chronicle
«Ingenious, inventive, magnificent!»

Kyle Smith, New York Post
«Fascinating!»

Rachel Saltz, New York Times
«Edmon Roch has a great story to tell in Garbo the Spy, and he recounts it with the flair of a Hollywood spy movie: Garbo is dramatic, entertaining, even funny.»

Keith Uhlich, Time Out NY
«Compelling, poetic!»

Andrew Roberts, The Daily Beast
«Garbo the Spy, the best documentary on World War II espionage to be released in cinemas in more than a decade.»

Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times
«Nothing less than fascinating. An extraordinary double agent is at the center of this artful documentary. Smart, evocative, compelling and fittingly inventive.»

Noel Murray, AV Club
«Unusual and bold…Garcia’s story is a doozy!»

Cole Smithey
«Wildly entertaining…Stop reading this review now and get thee to the cinema! You will not be disappointed!»

Karina Longworth, Village Voice
«Playfully scrambling documentary tropes, Roch uses judiciously chosen clips from Hollywood films (The Stranger, Patton, and, of course, Mata Hari) to tell the story of real events in which Pujol was involved, and creates a dialogue between the fictions Pujol created to help win the war and the fictions Hollywood created to memorialize that victory.»

Jennifer Merin, About.com
«Garbo is better than Mata Hari …Wonderfully entertaining…a real life spy thriller. Roch engages his audience fully in the intrigue, creating an aura of suspense and an ambiance of uncertainty even about things that we already know. That’s what makes this documentary such a treat.»

Armond White, City Arts
“It is one of the cleverest political documentaries ever made…Director Edmon Roch understands how history and politics often come to us through romantic supposition…Through layers of fiction, Roch inquires about the historicity of film…exploring the mythology of espionage and penetrating the mystery of heroism…creating a brilliant, instructive analysis of how history becomes legend.”

Jonathan Holland, Variety
«…Garbo is a compelling, gracefully told account of an extraordinary Spanish double agent during WWII who helped change the course of history (…) [Edmon Roch] creates a dazzling mixture of feature film and archival footage, interviews and music, which beautifully underscores the docu’s theme of the shifting border between truth and falsehood (…) Spain’s hottest docu in years…»

Francesc-Marc Álvaro, La Vanguardia
«…Edmon Roch hooks us from the very start with the adventures of the Catalonian Juan Pujol (…) It brilliantly combines testimonies with fragments of classic war films and spy movies, and never falters (…) In Garbo’s suitcase, we find fiction that leads to the truth, chance encounters that turn into powerful strategies, silences that speak louder than words, along with the encrypted ciphers that shed a light on this historical period (…) I highly recommend to storm the movie theatres to enjoy this small jewel of a film…”

E. Rodríguez Marchante, ABC
«…What a great character, this Garbo, the man who saved the world, a spy who managed to fool the Third Reich without barely leaving the confines of a room (…) What a great brainteaser, worthy of Houdini (…) What a great idea to let cinema itself narrate or suggest the story (…) It’s rare to come across a perfect story told in such a perfect way.»

Salvador Llopart, La Vanguardia
«…At times, it seems like pure comedy, rising up to the level of a film like Lubitch’s To be or not to be (…) Facts are underlined, contrasted and emphasized by fragments of films – and how well chosen they are!  How well edited!  (…) There is much cinema in Garbo, of the good kind, the kind that knows a story must be revealed in dosages to achieve a multiplying effect…»

Pere Vall, Fotogramas
«…A different take on history, making it officially entertaining and attractive (…) The director turns to the history of film and other carefully studied reference points and places them with exact precision in order to make the game more passionate  (…) It’s both fun and educational in equal measure… »