(1996, Dir. Mohsen Makhmalbaf)
In Short: A former policeman and a film director collaborate to make a movie chronicling the event that brought them together twenty years earlier. I don't remember exactly how I came across this movie, but it's a good thing I did. It's an Iranian film, and it's vastly different than anything I'd ever seen. The most noticeable difference is that the storytelling is not as blatant as in American or other Western cinema. The whole story is there, sure, but it requires some assembly. It's not lazily written or poorly put together, it's thought provoking. It demands attention. The style in which this film is shot is very documentarian. It all feels very real and raw. There's very little scoring and no complex editing, but there are some truly beautiful shots in the simplistic visuals of this movie. There are no close-up shots that I can recall--everything is medium to wide, which puts an odd sort of distance between the viewer and the characters. These choices close and re-open the emotional gap between the film and its audience. There are a lot of parallels happening in this film--between two different sides of the same story, between art and reality, between the past and present. It's absolutely fascinating to see all these parallels develop and continue independently throughout the course of the film until everything comes together at the end. It's very powerful. This is a film about perspectives--new perspectives on an old issue, different perspectives on the same issue--and how a person can learn from them, or how they can change the course of events. A Moment of Innocence urges viewers to consider the full scope of any situation and to imagine other people complexly. That's valuable advice any day.
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AuthorEileen here, writing reviews for film class. Archives
April 2018
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