Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

bnemazie I noted this movie on my cable service and had it recorded since I saw it had an 86% favorable audience ranking. Since I am Iranian I was more interested to watch this movie. I had recorded the movie on my DVR some months ago until I got to watch it tonight. Unfortunately I was not impressed by this movie. This movie is about lesbian love between two Iranian teenage girls in post 2009 Iran. The movie is slow moving. There is little character development in the movie. Too many story lines are crammed into this movie and make it incoherent.The plot is perhaps believable for audiences with little actual appreciation of the real life "circumstances" in Iran, who are accustomed to the usual clichés that abound on mass media narratives about Iranian life. For me the plot was not believable, teenage rebellion ala Western teenager, for example purportedly 16 year old girls doing shot after shot at the party, except among the super rich kids, just does not ring true. The addict musician brother who inexplicably turns religious and Islamic moral vigilante but wears a tuxedo to his wedding and dances with unveiled women in very appealing dress and makeup just does not ring true. I give the movie a 5 for effort.

evgenia Movie is erratic, obscure and basically resemble a long video clip. Its plot hard to follow and characters are weekly developed, most plot twists are logically disconnected. So why is this debut feature movie got Sundance audience award, was reviewed by most prominent American newspapers and was shown in numerous American theaters? Difficulties of lesbian love in Iran is widely compelling, so it's pretty easy to speculate on the subject and arouse more public outrage against Islamic republic regime on the whole, which is exactly the present agenda. That's the only plausible explanation Even if the director as she stated made a movie about her youth and experience in Iran, it turned out to be a spot on for western anti-Iranian propaganda. This is the only reason the movie being noticed, awarded, discussed and promoted. So it's obvious that the subject of forbidden lesbian love is alluring and induces great empathy, and is truly sad. This movie, however, does not really focus on that, putting a side the fact, that girls are so far from real lesbians and are more of a man's dream of lesbians. Movie is exceptionally superficial and mostly focuses on the physical aspect of the girls relationship, bed scenes are shot in the music clip manner. Most part of the film girls go from one party to another and once even have to run away from the moral police (duh). Their 'fight' for human rights is represented, I assume, by their secretly doubling movie 'Milk' with two allegedly gay guys. Only the process of doubling an intercourse scene of Harvy Milk and his lover is shown though. The most meaningful dialog that took place among the characters on the human rights subject is one where they jokingly argue whether having sex with whoever you want is a an indivisible human right or not. The director, moreover, tried to make out of this scattered music clip a melodramatic thriller on top of all. Thus the older brother of Atefeh, Mehran, who is an ex heroin addict, and supposedly a talented pianist has been recently released from a rehab and became a righteous Muslim overnight. He calls moral police on his friend's grandiose party and apparently completely renounces his old life style. His new obsession is Shirin, who is from an impoverished family of university professors, supposedly killed for their anti-government actions. Mehran, who often sits in front of his computer turned out is spying on Shirin by installing hidden cameras all over the house. He is an extremely bad copy of William Baldwin's character in 'Silver'. He looks pathetic and comic trying to depict an obsessed psychopath. Finally he blackmails Shirin and makes her marry him, since he recorded her doubling 'milk' and can put her to jail. The funny thing is that he is more than Shirin could ever dream about - Her uncle has been pushing her to get married for quite a while and another beau was much worse of a deal anyway. Film ends by Shrirn kissing her husband goodbye, who all of a sudden became an ambitious businessman and is going to work in his Mercedes. Atefeh bribes a travel agent with her daddy's money and gets a visa and a ticket to Dubai, where she thinks 'everything is possible'. The whole film is so absurd and out of place, and characters are so weakly developed, that its dramatic part is just sort of comic in a bad way. Apart from all its nonsense script, awful editing, unconvincing performance, the movie does not even appeal to an average Tehranian because It is entirely detached from reality.

cohoman After watching Circumstance I have mixed feelings about this movie. I did like the portrayal of this middle class Iranian family. The love that the parents had for their children was very apparent. And also the son's and daughter's love for their parents. I think the film should have been a little longer to show how the son became a little fanatic about his faith. I could not see why he did.I feel that Shireen seemed to fall in love with Mehran when he showed his vulnerable side to her and how much he love her. I think she grew out of her homosexual tendencies.What I didn't like was the portrayal of anyone who was religious as fanatic. I'm sure there are Muslim fanatic in Iran just as thee are Christian fanatic in the USA. But there is nothing wrong with believing in God.I don't want to see Morality Police here in the US like was shown in the movie, but I do wish we had more of a moralistic people here in the West. This may sound very strange but in the state of California the law prohibits licensed mental health professionals from offering therapies aimed at making gay and lesbian teenagers straight. These are young people who want the treatment.

zetes A film made by an Iranian expatriate living in the United States. The film is set in Iran, but was filmed in Beirut. The story follows two best friends, Nikohl Boosheri and Sarah Kazemy, who discover a sexual attraction after Kazemy moves in with Boosheri after her dissident parents disappear (and are assumed to have been murdered by the government). Meanwhile, Boosheri's brother, a former drug addict who has become deeply religious after returning from prison, spies on his friends and family, and is completely open to turning any of them into Iran's morality police. This film has mostly been dismissed by critics and viewers (it has a fairly dismal 6.0 rating on IMDb), and I can understand some of their criticisms. It's a little too glossy, a little too polished, and the hot, teenage, lesbian sex is more than a tad exploitative (almost Cinemax-ian at times). But, really, there's a very good human story at the core of this, with very well written and performed characters. Boosheri, in particular, is just fantastic. I think it's also partly dismissed because it wasn't filmed in Iran - if it was, it would have been a critical hit for sure - and the director probably would have been stoned to death, which would make it even more beloved. Keep in mind that the writer/director, Maryam Keshavarz, is actually an Iranian woman who escaped her home country.