The Circle

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Peri C @peridot44 Jul 1, 2026 It's rare for a film's structure to do so much work in creating the emotional tone. The way this film tells its story is such a big part of what makes it so unique and affecting. The film cuts us off from each individual woman's story abruptly, asking us to experience some small level of the uncertainty they do in their particular and societal situations. And at the same time, each individual story is always a continuation of a larger story. The performances are so engaging and intimate as well. See more

spencer p @s_plewe Nov 27, 2015 It's certainly a powerful cultural window with emotional piercings, but it also has moments that are clear of common sense. See more

Jun 25, 2014 Simultaneous to Marziyeh Meshkini's symbolic masterpiece <i>The Day I Became a Woman</i> (2000), Panahi applies his trademark, engrossing style of striking realism, lively urban environments and hypnotic tracking shots to direct this furious denunciation against gender inequalities against women in contemporary Iran, a society that prevents women from having an abortion, that prevents them from making a shocking amount of formalities without police authorization, that forbids them to travel without male company, that makes women endure physical, psychological and domestic violence, that forbids them to accept car rides from men and to buy tickets alone, and that makes them endure unfair marital regulations that ultimately increase paternalistic and chauvinist tendencies inside the families and empowers men to legally ask for a divorce for inhuman reasons. <i>Dayereh</i> is credited with having the narrative structure of Max Ophüls' <i>La Ronde</i> (1950), given that, as literally suggested by the title, the film comes full circle. Besides, all of the events are interconnected, similarly to Meshkini's testament, but instead of being separated vignettes, they are connected in real time in the lapse of one single day. Perhaps this is a way to state that these kinds of injustice can be seen "everywhere you turn your head". Panahi scores again with his most straightforward commentary directed for worldwide masses, especially aimed at similarly sexist and oppressive societies around the world... And with the abandoned little girl featured in this film, we might just have a reason of why Mina's mother in <i>The Mirror</i> (1997) never came to pick her daughter from school... 97/100 See more

Nov 15, 2013 Panahi's The Circle' is just about the most depressing Iranian film I've ever seen. It begins in a maternity ward with the birth of a daughter to a woman called Solmaz Gholami, whose mother is worried that the young woman's in-laws will insist on a divorce now that, against what was suggested in the scans, the child is not a boy. And it goes on through a group of recently released female prisoners and their insurmountable problems and a woman who cannot afford to keep her little girl and leaves her in the street, watching until the social services take her away to be cared for. Among all these women it is only the prostitute who seems uncowed by the constant repression. The last scene is in a cell where all the women are now gathered. A phone rings. the guard comes to the cell door asking for Solmaz Gholami, the woman who has given birth in the first scene. This is one hell of a powerful film and conveys no hope whatsoever. Had it been made in the West, it would probably have been considered anti-Iranian propaganda. But remember, this was made over ten years ago, and there are many Iranian films with a more positive view. Times change. I hope. See more

Dec 30, 2012 A film I have been meaning to see for years and one that tells the all too familiar tale of most Iranian cinema. Horribly oppressed women struggling to eek out a happy existence. These stories need to be told. This is wonderfully directed as each woman's story is passed to the next and then comes back full circle. See more

Nov 16, 2012 Un cerchio narrativo sulla condizione delle donne in Iran che vivono in un'eterna prigione. Il cinema iraniano sembra vivere negli anni 2000 lo stesso momento di forte intensità esperessiva tipica del neorealismo italiano di 60 anni prima. See more

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The Circle

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