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100Makhmalbaf continues her rise as Iran's most promising young female filmmaker, and Iranian cinema extends its reign as one of the world's most exciting cultural phenomena.
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91The stripped-down dramatic constructs, austere imagery and abstract characters are equal parts poetry and politics, obvious at times but evocative and heartfelt.
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88Makhmalbaf finds room for moments of humor and humanity.
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88Like so much Iranian cinema, Blackboards is a work of lyrical propaganda. But its metaphors are opaque enough to avoid didacticism, and the film succeeds as an emotionally accessible, almost mystical work.
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80A fascinating allegory of life in Iranian Kurdistan, a remote borderland still deeply scarred by years of war with Iraq.
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80An indelible and ultimately moving vision of humanity buffeted by the elements and by international political tides.
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75Director Samira Makhmalbaf made this raw and effective parable with the recognizable help of her father, legendary director Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
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Slyly powerful.
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70Like many other Iranian films, Blackboards counters the generally broadcast ideas about this part of the world. It is a testament of quiet endurance, of common concern, of reconciled survival.
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63We've got the trademark elements but not their magical bonding, and the result is a selection of scenes in search of a movie.
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40Episodic and minimalist to a fault, Blackboards makes its ironic point about education, then makes it again a few times over for good measure, rarely expanding beyond its narrow seriocomic agenda.
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20Blackboards is both shrill and soporific, and because everything is repeated five or six times, it can seem tiresomely simpleminded.
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10About as much fun as a grouchy ayatollah in a cold mosque.