Intelligent and moving mixture of fiction and documentary. A Moment of Innocence is not just an entertaining feature, but also a quest for a truth that turns out to yield many truths and fictions. The film is also a treatise on fake and – just like all the other fake films – a film about film. In the bewildering Salaam Cinema, Makhmalbaf provided a display of his talent to allow documentary and fiction to mingle. In this film he goes a step further. A former policeman asks Makhmalbaf for a role in his next film. The two turn out to have met once and in very strange circumstances. As a boy of 17, when Makhmalbaf was a fanatical supporter of the opposition to the Shah, he attacked the policeman on guard with a knife to take his gun. The attack failed and the young Makhmalbaf disappeared into jail. Twenty years later, Makhmalbaf makes a proposal to the policeman: he doesn’t give him a role, but asks him to help him film the old incident. Both men make their own reconstruction of events. The two versions differ strikingly. One version, but maybe both, has to be fake. (GjZ)
