At age 17, Mohsen Makhmalbaf joined the opposition movement against the Shah of Iran. He stabbed a police officer and tried to get his gun, and was thrown into a torturous jail for five years. Twenty years later, with Makhmalbaf now an established movie director, the very same policeman came to one of his casting calls. Makhmalbaf decided to make a movie about the incident: he and the ex-police officer would coach and direct 17-year-old versions of themselves. The result is A Moment of Innocence, and it is fantastic.
This is not a political film; not really. Instead, it’s about how stories change in the retelling, and how history is fluid. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the ex-policeman. While casting his younger self, he wants to cast the equivalent of a male model, then sulks when his decision is overturned in favor of a kid who looks much more like him. Throughout the film, the policeman is concerned to not come across as “the bad guy”; he wants to be the protagonist, and by the end of the film he gets his wish, though probably not in the way he imagined. What emerges is our realization that he’s glamorizing his memories to make up for a lonely life.
The fact that the backstage story is presented in a documentary form adds another layer of fiction to this true story. Not only are these two recasting their past, they are playing themselves in a reconstructed present. Iranian cinema is great at playing with the delicate balance of truth and fiction in filmmaking, and it’s masterfully on display here–as is a fascinating use of long takes, also common to Iranian cinema, which emphasizes the art of conversation over the structure of dialogue. Brilliant. Go see A Moment of Innocence. You will not be disappointed.