The Mirror

This is a pure concept: Director has chosen to play with two resources: camera and sound. No music, no SFX.

The story itself is quite surprising.

Sometimes, the lower the budget, the greater the creativity. The border between documentary and film is blurred, so the sense of "reality" is quite present and remains till the end.

The director also plays with the audience: there is a certain point when the viewer feels to be misplaced.

As Rene Magritte's painting "la Vengeance", in which the artist does not accept the inherent limitations of his art, he dares to paint outside the easel, that way Jafar Panahi goes beyond the usual simple structure of the movies.

Just for "independent advanced" movie goers.

9/10

The fact that this film is set in Tehran makes it more then just a good little "slice of life" film. The setting and story give us a glimpse into ordinary life in one of the places that we westerners only read about in the newspapers and then only when bad things are happening there.

The story chronicles second grade student Mina's eventful trip home from school on a day that her mother fails to show up to take her home. Mina travels by scooter, bus, taxi and on foot through the frantic traffic of downtown Tehran. On her way home she meets with and overhears conversations by many different people from an old woman, to a police officer, to a auto mechanic. Mina also manages to quit the movie about half way through yet her odyssey continues anyway hence the film's title. Mina is very fresh and cute, the bit players are all very real and the trip home from school is fraught with situations that waiver between poignient to funny. Everything adds up to a film well worth watching.

One of the most brilliant movies you'll ever see! Before the 38-minute mark, you will be caught up in the drama of a lost little second grade school girl wandering along the perilous traffic of Teheran. After the 38-minute mark, one of the most incredible experiences in cinema begins: the meltdown of Mina the Diva. This tiny, squeaky voiced actress refuses to participate in the film anymore, and 4 minutes after her meltdown, director Panahi makes a split second decision that changed the film and his career: KEEP FILMING. The next hour is filled with more drama than any script could ever create: (a) Mina sheds her scarf, an arm cast and clothing before she storms off the bus in a rebellion as bold as a student uprising during the Revolution, (b) After yelling to the camera man to LAY OFF, Mina darts through traffic as the camera tries to keep up with her, but in her haste to flee the set, she keeps the mike on and we hear her footsteps and conversations she has with people as she tries to navigate her way home—she really does get lost, (c) we have scary scenes when we can't see Mina, but hear cars screeching to a halt: maybe she has she been hit (d) we hear some shady men talking to her, and we wonder is this a child threatened with abduction (e) on the bus and in taxi rides that Mina takes, we hear the true undercurrents of Iranian society regarding the tension between modern women and traditional men, (f) we learn of how compassionate some people can be towards keeping the world's most precious asset, our children, safe. I will not spoil it, but the natural ending to this tale is great. This is one of the best films you can all year. So AfroPixFlix says see it!

Iranian director Jafar Panahi recently got arrested, charged with propaganda. He is sentenced to six years in jail and is banned from making movies for twenty years. This makes his 1997 movie "The Mirror" ("Ayneh" in Farsi) all the more interesting. The movie depicts a girl wandering Tehran's chaotic streets looking for her mother. Suddenly, she decides that she doesn't want to play the part anymore! First time that I've ever seen that happen in a movie.

The only other Panahi movie that I've seen is "Offside", about women getting kept from attending a soccer game, officially because the men's legs are showing. Judging by that, and by the conversations that the girl hears on the bus in "The Mirror", Panahi is not a director whose films really please Iran's authorities. There should be no doubt as to why he now languishes in jail. And above all, I truly recommend this movie.

Although this is no Hollywood, but just like another day in LA the poor director is having trouble with his temperamental star, save by quick thinking he somehow has turn this film into (perhaps) a far more interesting movie then he has intended.

Little Mina is a good actress, if not a very professional one, but one should consider that she is only in second year of her primary school and she has plenty of character to make up for it.

The film follows the day of Mina, and how she was trying to find her way home which mirrors the story of the film she no longer wants to take part in. The film lets us see the world from a little girl's point of view, hear her thoughts... it's a little reminder of how it was when we were little... being a child is not easy... no one wants to take you seriously, it takea you twice the time just to dial at a payphone, you don't remember those funny names grown up call those road.

It is a very interesting film, perhaps slow at first, but it will certainly make you laughs, make you think.