A Moment of Innocence Director: Mohsen Makhmalbaf Year: 1996 Length: 78 min. Country: Iran | France
As previously noted, Close-Up introduced to post- Revolutionary Iranian cinema two new, very related types of films: “chimerical” films that blended fiction and documentary;
and self-reflexive films that
concerned films and filmmakers. Of the films that came after Close-Up and were influenced by it, some adopted the first form, some the second. Of the few that followed Kiarstami’s lead and adopted both, none is more fascinating, original or emotionally powerful than Makhmalbaf’s A Moment of Innocence.
It’s worth noting that the chimerical films also divide into two groups, or inclinations: those that appear to be documentaries but contain fictional elements, and those that clearly are staged dramas but that have important documentary elements. (Of the first group, Close-Up remains the most intricately deceptive: as we have seen, it strikes first-time viewers as a documentary, yet contrary to appearances, there’s actually no scene in it that’s “real” documentary in the sense of not having been staged for the camera.)
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While A Moment of Innocence belongs to the second group, it was made around the same time as two Makhmalbaf films of the first group that are co closely related to it that some critics see the three films as comprising a trilogy: Salam Cinema uses the actual auditions of A Moment of Innocence to construct a subtle political parable in which Makhmalbaf plays a fictionalized version of himself; and Gabbeh is a “poetic” documentary about nomadic weavers in which all the main people are actors (some actual nomads, some not) playing scripted roles.
In A Moment of Innocence, Makhmalbaf reflects not only on cinema and Iranian politics and culture but also on his own changes as a man and an artist. It might be said that this makes it the most autobiographical of all these films, but that statement would be a bit too simplistic, especially given that several versions of “Makhmalbaf” are seen or implied in this film. To put it mildly, Makhmalbaf has been a protean and highly controversial figure in Iran, wildly admired by some
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