The Apple

1998 ‘سیب’ Directed by Samira Makhmalbaf

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.

Massoumeh Naderi Zahra Naderi Ghorban Ali Naderi Azizeh Mohamadi Zahra Saghrisaz

Alternative Titles

La pomme, Sib

drama

86 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Sally Jane Black 1

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…
Review by Maevez

Two daughters have been locked up by their parents for 12 years and social workers arrive to investigate the situation.
This is based on a true story and features the real people who actually lived it. It's an impressive directorial debut by Samira Makhmalbaf, I can't believe she was 18 years old when she made it.
Although it is frustating, bittersweet, sad and confusing to watch, I can't help to think everyone should see it. If you liked Mustang(2015) and The Virgin Suicides(1999) don't miss this film experiment.
Review by Natasha C. ★★★½

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 =).
Review by Sara Gomes ★★★★

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.
Review by Steve G 🟨🟥 ★★★★½

52 Films Directed By Women 4: In 52 Days!
40/52
World Tour 2020
A heartbreaking film that's really tough for me to write about, although I will say that I honestly had no idea that Samira Makhmalbaf was 17 when she made this. Just completely amazing that a work of this maturity and vision could have come from someone so young. Quite remarkable.
I really loved the moments of humour that emerge here, they're so natural and say so much about the charming mischievousness and toughness of kids. Even after all those years in captivity, within minutes they're starting to find their voices and a whole new personality is emerging. The bit with the ice creams was absolutely delightful.
What…
Review by V. Lepistö 🏳️‍🌈 ★★★★½

No one plays with reality and fiction quite like the greatest masters of Iranian new wave. The film's strong sense of longing for freedom (and beauty) seems to be partly legacy from Samira's father Mohsen who also edited and scripted the film but ultimately it's simply humanist longing (girls' wanderings after interesting objects reminds me of little blind boy's wanderings after the most beautiful music in Mohsen Makhmalbaf's The Silence released on the same year). We witness moments of regret and injustice but also beauty and wonder. Mirrors show the truth but also only half of it, apples are tempting and full of life, new games are weird, people are curious... The film isn't only "compensation" or "therapy" for the family caught in the actual incident, it goes beyond that. It's full of sense of compassion and solidarity even in the middle of unfair events. Jean Renoir would have loved this film.
Review by Rod Sedgwick ★★★★

''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…
Review by Ḋ̤͇̮͙ͥi̵͓͙̱͚̎͟m̶̷͔ͪ̽͡ă̶̸̝ͦ͊̿͋͞ ★★★★★

هاد الفلم وصل لقمة السينما في البساطة و التأثير، و المثير للدهشة اكتر انو كان اول فلم عملته سميرة مخملباف و هي عمرها ١٨ سنة. ناس حقيقيين عم يمثلو قصتهم، ارتباط ما بين الواقع و عالم الأفلام، فلم ما بتكرر مرتين.
Review by Rembrandt Q Pumpernickel ★★★ 4

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.
Review by Diga Lá Um Filme

O pai de uma família, composta por ele, uma mulher cega e duas meninas, é denunciado por maus tratos, ele manteve as garotas trancadas em casa durante seus 12 anos de vida, agora, sob o risco de perder a guarda das crianças, ele é obrigado a libertá-las para o mundo.
O filme, não somente foi baseado em uma história real, como trouxe as pessoas envolvidas para interpretam a si mesmos, sendo difícil encaixar esse filme em categorias como de documentário ou ficção, acaba sendo um híbrido, com características muito particulares que tornam sua própria forma em um atrativo, algo que é bastante comum na cinematografia iraniana.
Apesar de ser uma história pesada, a diretora entrega uma narrativa bastante leve, principalmente…
Review by Owen ★★★★

52 films by women – ultimate challenge 2017
Week 11: 13-19 March
From the Middle East
March 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…
Review by Josh 1

This docudrama tells the story of two adolescent girls (Zahra Naderi, Masume Naderi) in Iran who have been kept imprisoned by their father (Qorban Ali Naderi) in their home from the day they were born. Interacting with a social worker who was notified of the situation, the girls' father voices his conviction that allowing the girls out of the house would lead to their corruption by males and the vices of the outside world. The neglected girls, meanwhile, can barely walk or speak.
Like if you agree.

Recent reviews

Review by juliana ★★★★

achei muito impressionante a diretora ter apenas 18 anos!! os personagens serem interpretados pelas pessoas reais da história e toda a simbologia israelense por trás da maçã... me acrescentou muito
Review by anabelgrimm

Que dor
Review by Adrian Korin

really quite fascinated by how this docudrama was made but damn it is a pretty disturbing story. i’m glad this ended somewhat well. I especially loved all the shots of the characters through the girls‘ mirrors
Review by Andrei Mutuliga ★★★★

8.50/10
Un film iranian din aceeasi "familie" cu Close-Up al lui Kiarostami, asa ca nu avea cum sa nu-mi placa mult.
De apreciat si mentionat debutul regizoral la doar 17 ani al Samirei Makhmalbaf.
Review by gozdedaver ★★★★½

Can yakan, çarpıcı bi hikaye, oyuncuların aynı zamanda gerçek olayı yaşayan karakterler olduğunu bilmek beni derinden etkiledi
Review by ancomfin ★★★★½

I'm very concerned about how this was made, It feels really exploitative in some ways. But it's still unique and fantastic, and many white guy directors have gotten away with far worse. Kinda problematic ngl, but still carried out with a lot of empathy and nuance
Review by Dani ★★★★★

Cinema iraniano ♡♡♡♡
Review by Sofia Franco ★★★★½

A história de A Maçã, por si só, já é bastante tocante e interessante. Contudo, ao sabermos que corresponde a uma história verdadeira, com personagens reais e filmadas por uma jovem diretora, o filme ganha um peso considerável. Tocante sem ser piegas, o filme apresenta, seja nos seus diálogos, seja na fotografia com sutilezas de gestos e reflexos, um belo relato da vida iraniana, porém capaz de adquirir contornos universais. Ao ler comentários sobre o filme, fala-se que a maçã representa a vida e a liberdade que alimenta as meninas. Mas também é possível vislumbrá-la como o pecado original que retira as meninas do seu cativeiro para expô-las à vida da qual estiveram privadas ao longo de 11 anos. A cegueira da sua mãe figura também como metáfora de um sistema que acaba tornando opacas as visões de liberdade às mulheres, e assim causando danos irreparáveis às suas vidas. Filme, portanto, que não pode deixar de ser visto.
Review by Bergen filmklubb (BFK)

ENG:
This is Samira Makhmalbaf's directorial debut, made when she was only 17 years old.
Two 11 year old sisters have lived their whole lives imprisoned by their parents in their family home.
The family's neighbours send an official complaint to the state, hoping for an intervention by a social worker.
This got national media attention, and only four days after the story broke, Samira Makhmalbaf started filming (with a very minimal script), with all the main characters playing themselves.
A real gem of Iranian new wave, where the line between fiction and reality is blurred, and you’re left quite unsure what’s real and what’s not.

NOR:
Dette er Samira Makhmalbafs regidebut, laget da hun bare var 17 år gammel.…
Review by Adriano Nascimento Moreira

A Maçã (1998) 👨‍👩‍👧‍👧🍎🍎🍎🍎🥄🐐🔑🪞
"Vão brincar na rua. Como as outras crianças."
Não entendi o que a diretora quis mostrar, ou o melhor, o pouco que conpreendi não me chamou a atenção.
Chato.
Não entendi o final.
#TheApple #AMaçã
Review by EddyeUchoa

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

The girls: *struggles to unlock the gate*
Me: *starts sobbing*
Review by derek ★★★½

Samira Makhmalbaf filmed this when she was 17. It's wild to think anyone that age could elicit genuine sentiment in their art yet here it is. It also probably helps to have an acclaimed filmmaker dad with a production house in his name but what Samira does here can't be faked through nepotism.
Despite the film's interior world marking the parents as irredeemable, another level of understanding is approached very carefully through its subtext and directorial eye. We begin to sympathise with the parents, who we come to realise are intensely scared of the world around them. The father must live off the generosity of others to provide while the mother is afflicted with blindness and can't fulfill any obligation…