Critic Reviews

A Man of Integrity is both a work of political defiance and of artistic audacity. The movie’s extreme contrast between the bland surfaces of daily life and the maddening pressures of ambient power looming beneath them turns its starkly realistic images into calmly furious denunciations, journalistic revelations, and even wildly disorienting hallucinations.

Lest you think this is all a bit much for one family to endure, Rasoulof’s storytelling acumen is firmly in the realm of propulsive, detail-driven ethical thriller built on its character’s actions, rather than mere punching-bag melodrama. And it goes somewhere, most importantly, with its ideas, leaving you after its final, devastating image with something to think about instead of simply abandoned with your rage or pity.

A Man of Integrity is a tense, enraging drama about corruption and injustice, set in a small village.

An uncompromising drama from one of Iran’s most outspoken directors.

Through it all, Akhlaghirad makes a fine, seething muse for Rasoulof, a character who never quite gave up his student protestor past now speaking for a filmmaker who plainly never outgrew his, either.

Rasoulof’s film, while understandably angry, is nothing if not singleminded . It’s a saturnine morality tale that unfolds in shades of rainy gray beneath leaden, overcast skies, gritting up the nation’s cinematic tradition of humanist drama to an almost unrecognizable degree.

Rasoulof’s story proceeds with the deliberate pace and simmering tension of a ‘70s political thriller.

A few mid-section pacing issues not withstanding, this is a satisfyingly gritty addition to Iran’s tradition of humanist cinema.

Employing minimal background music and a bleak, blue-gray color palette, Rasoulof evokes a sense of nihilism that is as suffocating as it is affecting.

If your first exposure to Rasoulof was There is No Evil, you may feel a bit let down by A Man of Integrity. That is not to say that this is a subpar film, as it is definitely a satisfying drama.