Septembers of Shiraz

A film well made - depicting the atrocities of the revolutionary regime in Iran.

This is a most beautiful but heart-wrenching movie about an upper middle class Jewish family living for generations in Iran and what horrors befall them during and after the revolution - simply because they are Jewish, professionals, and educated. It is also an excellent look into the thinking of average Iranian people before and after the revolution, something we never saw on the news in US. The acting is superb, the sets and production perfect. A good human story though I had to think twice at the end before deciding that "good" did in fact triumph. Not for kids or pre-teens. Teenagers should be able to handle this, though some (adults, too) may choose or need to look away at times, even though the torture scenes are not too explicit but rely more on actors.

the realism

The movie was good and I liked it, but not sure about Salma's performance. I like her as an actress, but not this time. Everyone else was great. The main prison guy performed very well. First I hated him as a guard and than liked him as a person who went through torture in the past. In general,I recommend the movie.

This is an interesting movie, but there was too much time spent on the torture scenes. It was as if the script did not quite have enough juice, so they had to fill up some time. Also, although she tried hard, I just did not find Selma Hayak convincing as an Iranian Jew after becoming used to her as the Spanish-accented Frieda Kalo.

Good presentation of the horror caused by the new regime in Iran.

A thought provoking film in particular for the times we are living. History does repeat itself and this film is an awakening on how fast things can turn bad and how quickly a nation can be lost. Good acting.

4+, really , but I've just come to the conclusion that anything with Shohreh Aghdashloo in it is worth watching. Also see House of Sand and Fog for another excellent performance.

Most comments on Amazon (and elsewhere) accuse the director of failing to make an entirely different film from the film he actually made. We read demands for more Jewishness, less Jewishness, more action, more history, dialogue in Farsi and heaven knows what other fanciful rewrites. Taking the film on its own terms, however, it shows a "good" middle-class man and his "good" wife at a time when all hell breaks out in their society. The man is accused, Kafka-style not of a specific crime but of "guilt." As the persecution and torture strip away his defences - flat denial, I was better than a lot of other people, and so on - he admits his guilt to himself. And then, in the masterstroke, he convinces his interrogator that they are both prisoners and that they are both guilty. Meanwhile his wife goes through a parallel process with the maid whom she has always treated "well" but with whom she has never sat down to dinner. This slow and agonising process of spirtitual discovery is what the film is about. Is the discovery-process well handled? I would say yes. Slow and crushingly convincing. So why only four stars? The film is set against a specific set of circumstances. This is bound to be dangerous if the circumstances are not sufficiently explored: there will be irritating gaps and a risk of self-contradiction if not enough detail is provided. Compare "Anonyma" as a film that got the balance right between spiritual journey and circumstances.We are still waiting for a film about the Iranian Revolution to match "The Quiet Don." It may be a long wait.

This was a film I was looking forward to seeing. It is about a Jewish businessman – Isaac (Adrien Brody) who is a successful jeweller. He is married to the wonderful Farnez – Selma Hayek in late 1970’s Iran. We get some scene setting but not a lot about the toppling of the Shah and very little about Ayatollah Khomeini; just that The Revolutionary Guard have taken over .Then the Guard come calling and Isaac is arrested and their whole World goes south in a very bad way. Now this is not a true story it is based on real events and those events are portrayed in a seemingly black and white way that supporters of the Ayatollah will see as very one sided. There is an attempt to balance the books but it sort of lacks credibility. Some of the scenes too were a bit of a stretch – but to say any of the detail could be a plot reveal – which I do not want to do.The acting is all very good, but there is some unfortunate CGI, blue screen and the period detail is all wrong. They do not have a single Hillman Hunter on the street shots and at the time 90% of all cars were Hunters, they even assembled them there. The action is also very lame and the actions of some of the players lacked all credulity, it was almost sanitised as I remember all too well the carnage that was shown on our screens at the time. It would have been nice to have had a better portrayal of what actually took place to a country that was at a cross roads in its history and some could say is still paying the price today.

What a crock! This film was a real waste of time... only bought the dvd because of Adrien Brody and Selma Hayak and quite frankly eventheir acting couldn't assist in making this movie watchable!

The book is better but it is an interesting take on the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and how people were dealt with by the Iran's Revolutionary Guard-torture,thief,murder.

great film