Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of my favorite film experiences ever, July 24, 2005
This review is from: A Moment of Innocence (DVD)
This is definitely the best Iranian film I've seen. It collapses fiction and documentary into an absolutely unique, humorous and overwhelmingly moving statement about violent political idealism and its collision with the realities of life and love. In the 70's, the filmmaker was a teenage Islamic militant fighting against the Shah. He stabbed a policeman and was jailed. Years later he became famous director. A man knocked at his front door and said, "I'm the policeman you stabbed. I want to be in one of your films. You owe me." The director said, "Let's make a film about what happened." This film is a reenactment/documentary about the making of that film and it blows me away every time.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Don't You Want To Save The World?" ~ A Flower, A Loaf Of Bread And A Memory Of Youth, September 23, 2007
This review is from: A Moment of Innocence (DVD)
Note: Persian with English subtitles. Released in '96 director Mohsen Makhmalbaf has created a cinematic masterpiece in this introspective semi-documentary film which provides the audience with a highly personal glimpse into real life events from his past. From the opening sequence of one solitary man walking along the train tracks as the "call to the faithful" echoes from a nearby mosque the film draws its audience into an almost surreal world containing a storyline being told by two individuals from two very different perspectives. The storyline merges and deviates back and forth between the memory of one particular event from the past that forever effected the course of both their lives. When all is said and done one ultimately learns that while perspectives and accounts may alter with the passing of time actions and events remain unchanged. Time disappears and one becomes lost in the intelligent dialogue and exotic urban landscape of Tehran to such a degree that when the closing credits suddenly and unexpectedly appear on the screen one feels as though awakening from a dream. And like a dream one is left with much to ponder and dissect in the days that follow. This is what filmmaking is all about!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mohsen Makhmalbaf's incredible meditation on the passionate idealism of youth, October 1, 2011
This review is from: A Moment of Innocence (DVD)
Although known these days as an opponent of the Islamist regime and exile from Iran, Mohsen Makhmalbaf was a militant in his youth. Desiring to fight the shah's regime, in 1974 he tried to steal a gun from a policeman, only to get shot and imprisoned for a few years. His film NUN VA GULDOON (Bread and Flowerpot, distributed internationally as A MOMENT OF INNOCENCE) reflects on this event, but in a novel fashion. For rather than simply make a film with young actors playing the roles of Makhmalbaf and policeman, the auteur gives us a film about making a film. As NUN VA GULDOON opens, we witness the now 40 year-old policeman (Mirhadi Tayebi) visiting the home of Makhmalbaf, hoping to get a part in one of his films as compensation for the attack of two decades earlier. The policeman and Makhmalbaf cast the young men who they want to portray themselves and agree to each direct their respective younger counterparts. We progressively learn more about what really happened on that fateful day, but the boundaries between reality and fiction become blurry. Are we watching a re-enactment of the events of 1974, the events themselves (with or without embellishments), or a reiteration of the same political radicalism in present-day Iran? The result is one of the most powerful films I've ever seen. I've struggled with some of Makhmalbaf's output, but this could only have been made by a master of cinema. Many scenes will haunt you long after the film: not only the final freeze frame (though it indeed deserves all the praise it gets), but the interweaving of timelines and magical transitions between the past and the present. The cinematic artistry on display is much greater than the simplistic presentation of Makhmalbaf in Western media as an opponent of the Iran's Islamist regime and little else, though the film does contain its elements of resistance. Certainly Makhmalbaf's suggestion that political radicalism and desire for change rises anew with each generation must have sat uneasily with the regime, who hoped that it had established for once and for all the right form of government.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
