Remarkable.
LA TIMES

Elegant… A powerful work.
SCREEN INTERNATIONAL
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Moving, lyrical… An impressive and original fusion of the political and the personal.
NEWSWEEK
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Kuras has assembled a remarkably thorough account of a family’s ordeal, edited to compelling effect by Tavi, who became a film editor in New York. Nerakhoon is a powerful work of anthropology.
SCREEN DAILY

The film is a poetic recounting of Mr. Phrasavath’s journey into exile…The title takes on both political and personal resonance as “The Betrayal” evolves into a meditation on the failures of imperialism and of patriarchy. The film’s lengthy incubation period seems inseparable from its central themes of loss and memory.
NEW YORK TIMES
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The Betrayal (Nerakhoon) is quiet, contemplative and impressionistic, which makes the story it has to tell all the more powerful.
THE NEW YORK TIMES

This heartfelt debut docu feature by veteran cinematographer Ellen Kuras brings an affecting personal dimension to a sprawling sociopolitical narrative
VARIETY

The Betrayal is a potent mix of archival footage, talking heads and visually arresting montages.
THE NEW YORK POST

It’s as if the filmmaker has opened a window onto a parallel world traveling beside our own.
VILLAGE VOICE

Even in a city bursting with extraordinary immigrant stories, this film about a Laotian-American family’s journey to Brooklyn is unusually moving
NEW YORK MAGAZINE

A probing, textured mix of historical and personally shot footage set to an effectively disembodied voiceover.
SLANT

The Betrayal avoids the taint of opportunism; Kuras and Phrasavath become collaborators in telling his story
TIME OUT

The damage to the family seems too deep to heal, yet the film is lyrical, expansive, unbearably beautiful, with a melting violin score by Howard Shore. The bitterness has an epic scale—bottomless, borderless, universal.
NEW YORK MAGAZINE

Epic story of one man and his war-torn family, across continents, decades, and cultures, with the director remarkably along through 24 tumultuous years.
FILM-FORWARD

The filmmakers have created a shimmering, absorbing experience that’s both specific and general, both concrete and abstract.
SALON.COM