Rakhshan Bani-Etemad's social melodrama has a grim, eye-opening fascination in its details of inner-city Iran, but tends to beat us over the head with a sense of mission.
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03/14/03
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Under the Skin of the City (2003)
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Reviews Counted:31
Fresh:27
Rotten:4
Average Rating:7/10
Theatrical Release:Mar 14, 2003 Limited
Synopsis: UNDER THE SKIN OF THE CITY marks the first U.S. release of a film by Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, one of Iran's most acclaimed filmmakers, and widely regarded as the First Lady of Iranian Cinema.... [More]
Starring: Golab Adineh, Mohammed Reza Forutan, Baran Kosari, Ebrahin Sheibani
Director: Rakhshan Bani-Etemad
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Reviews for Under the Skin of the City
Top CriticThe latest example of the brilliance evident in contemporary Iranian cinema.
03/14/03
The plot has all the ingredients of a soap opera, but Bani-Etemad, who has been making movies since the '80s, is able to make it much more.
03/14/03
Under the Skin of the City focuses on a hard-working, strong-willed mother in Iran who demonstrates big-hearted courage in her life, perhaps more so than a soldier in battle.
03/14/03
Under the Skin of the City focuses on a hard-working and strong-willed mother in contemporary Teheran who demonstrates big-hearted courage in her difficult and self-giving life.
03/14/03
Like many of Bani-Etemad's previous films, particularly her early documentaries, this polished, surprisingly slick drama exposes the human cost of Iran's rapid urbanization and capitalist expansion.
03/13/03
Somehow the calamities that befall Tuba and her children take on the purgative and redeeming force of tragedy.
03/13/03
Top CriticBani-Etemad is a pragmatic feminist, and like her breakout film, Nargess (1992), Under the Skin is a conscientious taboo-breaker.
03/11/03
Top CriticA reasonably compelling family drama gains heft by its attack on Iran's social system.
03/10/03
Bani Etemad, a well-known filmmaker in her native Iran who alternates between making fictional and documentary films, employs a minimalist aesthetic for Under the Skin of the City that infuses the film with an earthy and sobering realism.
03/10/03
Though we sometimes feel we're missing bits of crucial backstory here and there, the characters are so relatable that we're with them all the way, sympathetic to the end.
12/08/02
Bani-Etemad's depiction of poverty and despair, approximating the tone and look of Italian neorealism, is stark and wrenching.
01/22/02
Top CriticThe film's finest moment comes right at the end...
01/07/02
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