Critic Reviews
| 100 |
Christian Science Monitor
Makhmalbaf 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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| 91 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The 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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| 88 |
New York Post
Makhmalbaf finds room for moments of humor and humanity.
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| 88 |
Boston Globe
Like 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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| 80 |
The New York Times
An indelible and ultimately moving vision of humanity buffeted by the elements and by international political tides.
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| 80 |
TV Guide
A fascinating allegory of life in Iranian Kurdistan, a remote borderland still deeply scarred by years of war with Iraq.
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| 75 |
New York Daily News
Director Samira Makhmalbaf made this raw and effective parable with the recognizable help of her father, legendary director Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
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| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Carla Meyer
Slyly powerful.
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| 70 |
The New Republic
Like 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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| 63 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
We'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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| 40 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Episodic 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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| 20 |
Village Voice
Blackboards is both shrill and soporific, and because everything is repeated five or six times, it can seem tiresomely simpleminded.
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| 10 |
Film Threat
About as much fun as a grouchy ayatollah in a cold mosque.
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