“One of the most powerful films to have emerged from Iran this decade.” - Toronto International Film Festival
A little girl's journey through the streets of Tehran turns into a dazzling metafictional exercise in this ingenious commentary on the nature of documentary filmmaking.
Halfway through, Mina, the character in the narrative, declares she's fed up with shooting, leaving the filmmakers powerless and flummoxed as she refuses to continue acting. In this seemingly surreal switch, Panahi has wrapped a blunt political critique inside the layers of a deceptively uncomplicated film.
“The pivotal moment in (this) film that invites us to see cinema as an Alice in Wonderland looking glass could alone serve as a crash course in recent Iranian movies, since it contains several of the form's hallmarks: it takes filmmaking itself as one of its subjects; it purposefully, wittily blurs the line between fiction and documentary; it features captivatingly natural performances by non-actors; it's as much allegorical as conventionally dramatic, and, above all, it centers on a child…” - The New York Times