Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.
Against all odds, an unquenchable artist has made yet another piece of powerful art. Read full review
In short, This Is Not a Film is the world within an apartment, and it is quietly devastating. Read full review
This Is Not a Film isn't just a film, it's a strong one. It's also an act of political defiance, a moving personal document and a meditation on what film is and can be. Read full review
This is a great film, and a triumph of creativity and courage over repression. Read full review
If you pay close attention, there's also an exhilarating evocation of how art is stubbornly made, and arbitrary authority put in its place, under the most confining conditions. Rene Magritte, whose famous pipe painting is slyly honored in the movie's title, would be jazzed. Read full review
In its way, this effort is both a forceful assertion of the most stifling brand of auteurism and a radical reconfiguration of its political potential. Read full review
Little by little, detail by detail, This Is Not a Film leads to a final scene of overwhelming power. I don't think it was even planned - no more than Panahi expected the little actress to take the cast off her arm. It simply happens, and then the film is over, having nothing more to say. Because, after all, it is not a film. Read full review
A small but extremely significant message in a bottle. That metaphor is almost literal: The picture made its way to Cannes via a USB drive -- which was smuggled in a cake. Read full review
It's irrefutably art, and undeniably vital. Read full review
Deft and ironic, mixing banal reality with poignant metaphor in a typically Iranian style. Read full review
4.5
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FREE JAFAR PANAHI Read full review
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