Synopsis
After twelve years of imprisonment by their own parents, two sisters are finally released by social workers to face the outside world for the first time.
The Apple
1998 ‘سیب’ Directed by Samira Makhmalbaf
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Not long ago, I read this interview, which basically spells out the ideas in The Apple directly from the young director's mouth. It's a great interview, but having read it, it would be redundant of me to speak directly of the themes of the movie. In it, Makhmalbaf specifically cites the story of Adam and Eve as a direct parallel to her work here, however, and that stood out--I think also to the interviewer--in that she seems to directly call Satan's role in that story good.
I must admit, I have never given too much thought to the story of Adam and Eve. Had I been taught the story in my adult life, I can't say that I would not…
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Berken's May 30 Days, 30 Countries Challenge Film nº 15 - Iran
Sib is a dramatized documentary about two girls who were locked up since birth and are "rescued" by the social services after a complaint filed by their neighbours.
With the principal characters played by themselves and some actual real footage, this film feels very real. The girls, the parents even the neighbours feel very alive.
The innocence of the girls making friends and wandering about for the first time really lights the mood for an actually very dramatic story about a really poor family, struck by misfortune and religion fundamentalism, with almost no education.
What's more interesting about this film is the showing of a story without judging anyone. The girls were locked up by their parents but specially the father is never shown like a real villain.
Sib is a really wonderful movie really worth watching.
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There's something about the sound of this film, the simplicity of almost everyone's words and actions, repetitive, like the banging of spoons, that achieves a musical and rhythmic quality. I like films that have that element to them, that are a bit hypnotizing in the way they sound.
Maybe the best film directed by an 18 year old (although she had her dad's help), but more metaphorical than aesthetically inventive. Rides the line between exposing the fictive elements of documentary, the documentary realities of narrative, and straight up exploitation pretty hard.
Getting harder to write reviews of everything. Not sure how Sally does it.
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This was kind of hard to watch, it really touched me.
To me, ignorance is one of the worst's evils of life, it's sad and tough to see.
What conforts me is that that the world still have people caring for each other and taking care of each other =). -
''A girl is like a flower, if the sun shines on her,
she will fade. A man's gaze is like the sun and a girl is like a flower.''18 year old filmmaker Samira Makhmalbaf said of Massoumeh and Zahra Naderi, who were the focus of her debut film The Apple: ''We shot this in 11 days, and during this 11 days, they changed more than during those 11 years, just because of having contact with us.''(the film crew), and it's easy to see the evidence of this blossoming throughout a film in which all the real people involved in this remarkable true story are cast to replay both real and fictional events to tell the story of two semi-retarded…
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52 films by women – ultimate challenge 2017
Week 11: 13-19 March
From the Middle EastMarch around the world #15/30 Iran
Two of the best films I watched last year were Mohsen Makhmalbaf's 'Moment of Innocence' and Marzieh Makhmalbaf's 'The Day I became a Woman'. This film by their daughter Samira is almost as good and seems to have a lot in common with her parents work. It shares with Moment of Innocence quite a playful collision of documentary and fiction, or rather of the obvious staging of supposed documentary for the directors own ends. It shares with her mother's film, and indeed a lot of the Iranian cinema I have seen, a sense of deep injustices largely being…
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Lovely. The fact that the director made this nuanced, subtle, complex film at the age of SEVENTEEN is insane. Do you know what I was going at 17?? Buying £2.50 jäger bombs and crying into a level textbooks.
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Samira Makhmalbaf was only 17 when she made this impressive exposé of this revolting real story and of the blatant gender inequality in Iran - and it is really shocking to see that those girls were sent home by a social worker after being discovered in such deplorable conditions.
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a 17 year old directed this!!! When I was 17 all I did was cry about boys, scroll through tumblr, and eat frozen yogurt!!!
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