A MOMENT OF INNOCENCE

A MOMENT OF INNOCENCE (1996) ****

Reviewed 11/13/99

Though Iranian and Chinese cinema have been at the cinematic aesthetic forefront for over the past decade, only in the past few years have they made their presence known on American soil. Owing to its more commercial nature, Hong Kong cinema has made the most headway into mainstream American consciousness as Jackie Chan, John Woo, and Chow Yun Fat finally gain recognition on this side of the Pacific. Mainland Chinese films with either an emphasis on epic scope or political polemic have not fared badly, while Taiwanese and Iranian films have received only the most scant of distribution. So last month's retrospective on Hou Hsiao-hsien and this month's run of two Mohsen Makhmalbaf films at New York's Walter Reade theater are a welcome remedy. The two Makhmalbaf films are his masterpiece, A Moment of Innocence, and his most recent film, The Silence. The former is the infinitely superior work.

Working on myriad levels, A Moment of Innocence defies easy categorization. At first it appears to be a making-of documentary chronicling Makhmalbaf's attempt to recapture events from his youth. As a 17-year old student radical, he stabbed a policeman, and was imprisoned for nearly 5 years as a result. The policeman feels like the incident ruined his chance at love. Now the policeman (superbly played by actor, Mirhadi Tayebi) and Makhmalbaf (playing himself) choose and train actors (Ali Bakhshi and Ammar Tafti, respectively) to play their younger selves. The actors though are not completely comfortable with their roles and hesitate to cooperate. So in a way that would make Luigi Pirandello proud, A Moment of Innocence is a fiction film of a documentary of a nonfiction film. It is a charming comedy, a bitter tragedy, and a moving tale of redemption climaxing in a freeze-frame last shot already being acclaimed as one of the greatest in cinematic history. Two other performances that must be mentioned come from the beautiful Marjam Mohamadamini, who plays the youthful Makhmalbaf's cousin, and scene stealing six year-old Hanna Makhmalbaf, playing herself. Hanna is Mohsen's daughter and sister to Samira, director of The Apple.