Diary entries forA Moment of Innocence
A Moment of Innocence
will you do what your heart tells you, or will you give in to that wintered voice?
A Moment of Innocence
March Around Cinema '24 (27/30): Iran 🇮🇷. How do you begin to define innocence or the loss of it? Among various themes and subtle iterations, Makhmalbaf uses this story (cinema generally) to recapitulate an event in which he participated in reality, like Kiarostami did with Close Up, to mention a more obvious but reasonable example. The difference between his compatriot and him is that this story thoroughly explores the concept of innocence based on the environment, sensitivities, identity, understanding, and self-management of feeling. All under the subversion and suspense that cinema can offer these sensibilities and visions. Essential of Iranian cinema that is a must-see.
A Moment of Innocence
ok who wants to save mankind with me?
A Moment of Innocence
“𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵’𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘮 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵?” “𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘩 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢 𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘢..” I’ve been trying to understand why Kiarostami’s Close Up (https://letterboxd.com/bulgogiboi/film/close-up/) doesn’t work for me. Is it the very coldness that his self-reflexivity crafts it only as theory into practice? Is there any warmth? The only portion of the film where I felt warmth was the camera aiming itself at the flowers to signify hope or change, in character, in reality. But it was only this specific scene. Here, warmth seeps in from the peripheries. Not just the gentleness of the non-actors, but the very vice by which they live not just persists through their selves, but into their characters. And it’s done so carefully, with such precision that you can’t help but be held by the film. Why are we recreating this very specific moment? Why are we revisiting memory in this way? In remaking it? Reshaping it? And then all to a brilliant end that not only provides the same kind of hope found in Kiarostami’s flowers, but in the very essence of cinema itself. Sometimes I think this will never work out. By which I want to mean to expel from the self, but it still remains self-contained, much like this film. It’s a personal one just as my love and hunger for cinema is personal. I really don’t know what to tell you than from these spurts which I call writing, which I call the self. But I hope it comes to you with the realization that there is a direct connection between life and art, and it’s the in-between in which I walk the fine tightrope to be able to make any meaning from this thing called living. “𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘦’𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧.”
