Saw A Moment of Innocence (1996) a chilly, slow, fascinating film by Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. It strongly reminded me of Close-Up, another Irianian film which similarly plays with reality and make-believe in weird, post-modern way. I feel they're leap-frogging the movies-about-movies of Fellini and Truffaut and jumping straight into a reality-television-inspired morass of reality and artifice. A dizzying kayfabe which is impossible to untangle. It's not the most gripping, but it's very intersting.
This film is about a ex-policeman who wants to become an actor. So, he goes to Makhmalbaf (the actual director of this film) to ask for a part. Makhmalbaf decides to film a re-enactment of the time when, as a young man, Makhmalbaf had stabbed this policeman. So, they cast young actors as young-Makhmalbaf and young-policeman and start to work establishing these young actors as clones of the actual men: they have similar ideals and attitudes, they naturally fall into re-creating the conversations the real versions of their characters must have had.
The film hovers in this arch, shadowy realm of not being real and not being totally imaginary. Scenes are re-created over and over, from different perspectives, sometimes even with the director of this film shouting instructions from behind the camera. There's a scene early on where the cop talks with one of his friends about the film. "Will you be a good guy or a bad guy?" They ask. This is a natural question, but this is an autobiography - there are no good guys and bad guys, only different perspectives.
The film ends on a sublime, lyrical freeze-frame, just before the stabbing (perhaps.) The story of what happened is muddled, complicated by the recreation. The question of who was innocent, of what was the moment of innocence suddenly has many conflicting and reflecting answers. I really enjoyed the film.
No comments:
Post a Comment