...reminds us that we can't rewrite our past, even when we have this much 'creative control' over it.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 15, 2015

It is rare when a single image can sum up the emotional core of an entire movie, but the final freeze-frame of A Moment of Innocence is so moving in its completeness, it reminds us with jarring simplicity that we are in the hands of a genuine artist.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 20, 2014

For Makhmalbaf, the film comes to represent a re-examination of his own idealism, and the possibility of further social change as a whole new generation of Iranian youth comes of age.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 20, 2014

Though its methods lie somewhere between Pirandello and Rashomon, A Moment Of Innocence adds a personal dimension that's uniquely its own, as Makhmalbaf's investigation into the past evolves into a touching act of contrition.

| May 20, 2014

What emerges is a consideration of the relativity of truth and memory.

| May 20, 2014

Too smug and too self-indulgent.

| May 20, 2014

This is one of the best features of the prolific and unpredictable Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf.

| May 20, 2014

Touching, funny, and totally original.

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 20, 2014

Superbly controlled and stylishly self-reflexive, this is also genuinely intriguing.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 20, 2014

This comedy of mixed motives and recently freshened memories becomes increasingly passionate.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 20, 2014

A breathtaking cross-fertilization of drama and fact.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 20, 2014

A Moment of Innocence may be slow, but it's steady, moving as gently and inexorably toward its surprising conclusion as the snow that falls endlessly over its cold, damp, befuddled characters.

| May 20, 2014

A merry analogist, Makhmalbaf draws a wealth of parallels, between ages and eras, hopes and fears.

| Aug 21, 2010

Cinema can restage the past, but can it absolve it?

| Sep 25, 2009

It's a wry comedy and a warm human interest story from Iran.

| Original Score: A | Aug 11, 2009

Though his style and concerns are totally different, there's an almost Rohmer-esque purity and precision about this film, which takes a making-of-a-movie vignette and spins something that's delicate, funny and touching by turns.

| Mar 26, 2009

Discarding his violent past, [Makhmalbaf presents a] 1974 event as something unthinkable to a younger generation and arrives at a truly poetic, thoroughly optimistic conclusion.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 5, 2008

There are moments here that are phenomenal.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 4, 2005

Resonates heavy with the Proustian understanding of how memories only amplify and enrich with time.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 23, 2005

There are also a handful of dialogue-heavy scenes that go on far too long and which have little impact on the "storyline."

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 30, 2002