Critic Reviews

Turns into something like a screwball farce, an intimate, self-aware one.

Normal ideas of truth, illusion, and representation are sent into the meat grinder, and the result is consistently disarming and beautiful.

A fascinating humanist experiment and investigation in its own right, full of warmth and humor as well as mystery.

A meditation-brilliant, humorous, and moving-on history and memory.

Almost forbiddingly austere.

Finds the impassioned Makhmalbaf in a more contemplative, even whimsical, mood than usual.

A fascinating fictional documentary.

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.

Muddled and endless.