Not so long ago A Nos Amours screened
Moshen Maklmalbaf’s A Moment of Innocence (1996) at the ICA. The
presentation of this Iranian film by A Nos Amours, a pop-up cinema collective,
raised questions about the political potentials of pop-up as a new mode of
cinema spectatorship.
Maklmalbaf’s quasi-autobiographical
film, set in his home country, is an exploration of what it means to recreate a
moment in history, and what such a re-exploration can hope to achieve. The film
follows Moshen (playing himself) who is making a movie about an incident which
was pivotal for his 17 year old self; the stabbing of a policeman during a political
demonstration. Unexpectedly, the policeman himself returns, eager to take part
in the film too, albeit with his own emotional agenda. Both men chose a ‘young
me’ to act in the reconstruction and set about training the boys to embody
their past-selves.
