Metacritic Film

Moment of Innocence, A

Starring Ali Bakhsi, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Ammar Tafti, and Mirhadi Tayebi

MPAA RATING: Not rated

New Yorker Films
Drama
78 minutes | Color
Iran / France
Released In Theaters November 10, 1999

Mohsen Makhmalbaf's film is based on his own experience as a young Islamic radical in 1974 when he attemped to stab a policeman and landed himself in prison for the act. Five years after his release from prison, the same policeman, then unemployed turned up to audition for one of Makhmalbaf's films. Makhmalbaf and the policeman each play themselves in the film.

WRITTEN BY
Mohsen Makhmalbaf

DIRECTED BY
Mohsen Makhmalbaf

Overall Metascore

This is a weighted, normalized average of all individual scores given by critics, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

70 / 100

Critic Reviews

100	San Francisco Examiner Turns into something like a screwball farce, an intimate, self-aware one.
92	Mr. Showbiz Normal ideas of truth, illusion, and representation are sent into the meat grinder, and the result is consistently disarming and beautiful.
90	Chicago Reader A fascinating humanist experiment and investigation in its own right, full of warmth and humor as well as mystery.
80	The New York Times Almost forbiddingly austere.
80	Los Angeles Times Finds the impassioned Makhmalbaf in a more contemplative, even whimsical, mood than usual.
80	Village Voice A meditation-brilliant, humorous, and moving-on history and memory.
70	TV Guide A fascinating fictional documentary.
50	New York Post 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.
0	San Francisco Chronicle Muddled and endless.

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