The Green Wave Reviews
Shared Darkness
Striking and powerful, The Green Wave serves as an inventive registering of the turmoil, upheaval and governmental crackdown of the Arab Spring.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
Top CriticIt offers a rare glimpse into the insurgents' long-held hopes for reform. This green wave, as a blogger remarks, is a tidal wave.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
A wrenching but illuminating look at what actually happened during Iran's Green Revolution in 2009-10.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
For all its omissions and problems, "The Green Wave" communicates certain basic truths effectively: Many Iranians want their voices to be heard and their votes to count.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
By airing an impassioned chorus of voices ranging from lawyers to religious clerics, the film argues that the 2009 protests were simply preparing the way for a larger populist movement that has yet to crest.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
[Shows] us a moment in history that reveals more about itself each time it is examined.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
The movie shows what happened, but it also conveys what it felt like to travel from euphoria to despair in the space of a few weeks.
That Ahadi and his team were able to safely compile, let alone edit together, this much ground-level footage is a feat in and of itself; that it comes together in such a compelling manner makes it almost vital.
This is London
A forceful reminder that the present regime beat, tortured, murdered and imprisoned its own subjects.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Guardian [UK]
Ahadu pulls the curtain back on a government that was willing to imprison and torture its electorate.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Financial Times
There are harrowing moments and a pulse, throughout, of passionate indignation. But more precision in the chronicling of events would have generated more power.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Little White Lies
It's an exciting time for Islamic cinema and this doc is an extraordinary intro into Iranian politics.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
The Skinny
Offsetting any gaps in its historical record is the breadth of testimony.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Manages to offer an informative chronicle of events as well as an emotional outpouring of regret and anger from those who saw their hopes dashed on the streets of Tehran.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Empire Magazine
A worthy topic that deserves a slightly better documentary.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Total Film
Heartfelt and inventive, this documentary from exiled director Ali Samadi Ahadi chronicles Iran's abortive Green Revolution during the summer of 2009.
Movie Habit
What happened in Iran in 2009 led the way for the Arab democracy revolt
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Eye for Film
Ali Samadi Ahadi paints a poetic and heartfelt portrait of a nation oppressed.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Screen International
Director Ali Samadi Ahadi intelligently weaves texts and blogs set against footage from a variety of sources.
Slant Magazine
Unlike Waltz with Bashir, it only seems to be using animation in an effort to make blog diaries by twentysomethings appear cinematic.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
