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Also in this section:
Iranian Director's 'Silence' Is Golden
The New York Post, November 10, 1999
Some wonderful films have come out of Iran in the
past few years, but "A Moment of Innocence," by highly
regarded director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, is too smug and too
self-indulgent to count as one of them.
"The Silence," on the other hand, which the same
filmmaker shot in Tajikistan and which opens today with "Innoncence" at
Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater, is a gorgeous film that makes the
most of a simple story and a fascinating, color-drenched setting.
Khorshid (Tamineh Normativa) is a blind
10-year-old who lives with his mother (Golbibi Ziadolahyeva).
He supports the family by working for a musical-instrument
maker.
Every day, a young female coworker (Nadereh
Abdelahyeva) picks him up at the bus stop and leads him to the
workshop. But all too often Khorshid hears a conversation or a
song and follows the source of the sound off the bus and into
the streets.
The instrument maker threatens to fire Khorshid
just as the landlord threatens to evict his family. In
response, Khorshid retreats into his own imaginary world,
inspired by the sounds around him.
As a picture of life in Tajikistan - a former
Soviet republic whose people seem to be an extraordinary
racial mix with a taste for brightly colored clothing - "The
Silence" is fascinating.
The rest of its appeal lies less in the slight
story, the abundant symbolism inspired by by Persian poetry or
the acting (mostly very weak) than in Makhmalbaf's
photography. One stunning, beautifully composed image follows
another.
The director's painterly eye is present to a
smaller degree in "A Moment of Innocence," a film set in a
snow-covered Tehran.
The movie's implicit message - that different people can experience the same incident in a different way - was sufficiently subversive to get the movie banned in Iran. But it is such an artificial exercise in playfulness about art and reality - he uses non-actors in a film-within-a film format - that poor acting and the lack of action take a tedious toll.
In 1975 Makhmalbaf was an Islamic revolutionary
who stabbed a policeman while trying to steal his gun, and he
was imprisoned until the Khomeini revolution.
This film depicts in faux-documentary style his
efforts to re-create that incident with the help of the
policeman (Mirhadi Tayebi).
There are some touching and some funny moments, but it's the kind of film that makes you wish for a fast-forward button attached to your theater seat.